


White Rabbit

by notenuffcaffeine, technologykilledreality



Series: Rule 42 [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen Goes to Iron Heights, Based on a Tumblr Post, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode Related, Everybody lies, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Misunderstandings, POV Leonard Snart, Prison, Prison Sex, Threats of Violence, coldflash - Freeform, prison riots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-12-07 23:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11633793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/technologykilledreality/pseuds/technologykilledreality
Summary: It wasn't Len's idea to let Barry go unofficially undercover as a thief to help him handle his crazy father, he even tried to tell him it was a bad idea, so of course Barry's involvement in the family drama would drag them both to jail. Now Len finds himself stuck serving time, waiting for a court date and trying to keep Barry alive without risking his identity as the Flash. It's not easy keeping the Flash out of trouble in a world he's completely unequipped to understand.--This is Len's perspective of Wonderland's alternate ending to s2e3 Family of Rogues, as dreamed up by technologykilledreality and RedHead over on tumblr. It lines up chapter by chapter with the events in Wonderland.----





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes it didn't pay to be the smartest man in the room. It was a risk. Especially when the idiots had loud mouths. Leonard Snart probably would have paid Barry Allen to stay the hell out of his family’s business that night if he thought the man was smart enough to take it. He would have rathered Barry do the cop-thing, the self-righteous good-guy thing, and just shut up and go save the damsel. Len knew his sister was in trouble. She needed someone with the knowledge and the tech to get a bomb out of her neck, and Barry fucking Allen was the only person Len knew who had those resources to help. Lisa had gone to the right person and Len hadn't even had to tell her. For all she was one damaged cookie, she had her moments of brilliance.

That just left Barry as the idiot in the scenario. The predictable idiot, of course; everyone else generally ran away from crumbling buildings on shaky foundations, but it was the Flash who usually ran in to look for survivors. And there the man stood, in the warehouse built on top of the faultline, just asking to take a fall when the ground opened up.

“So I’m in? For real?” Barry asked.

“As a friend of Leo, if you do your bid, and shut your damn mouth, Sam,” came the predictably annoyed response from Lewis Snart. The ticking time bomb that waited at Len’s foundations. He had his finger on the trigger of the bomb that threatened Len’s little sister’s life, and now, thanks to the dogged persistence of Barry Allen, he had a hostage on the other end of his gun sights, the old-fashioned way. And Barry grinned like he was celebrating it. The guy was nervous under it, but Len knew him better. Lewis wouldn't notice the lie. And he didn't notice the lie because Len worked to sell it. Lisa’s fate had just been tied to Barry’s, only partially through his asshole father’s good mood. Len wouldn't let it go wrong.

And maybe, with Barry’s luck, things would work out okay. Assuming Barry could BS his way into a vault lock and Lewis would be given no reasons to doubt the Boy Scout on their team. Because, as a smart kid who was equal parts idiot, he had to be good for something with that death wish of his.

 

\--------

 

They had the gems in hand. With the exception of one dead metahuman hero that Central City would never know to grieve, the plan had been a success. Len didn't know if Barry’s friends had figured out how to help his sister, so he couldn't risk his father’s itchy trigger finger on a failed heist. He had to watch as his father dumped the trays of gems into a bag and prattled on about... whatever bullshit he was ranting about. Len’s attention kept going back to the vault door, to where they had left the body; he was distracted.

A slight movement of a shadow caught his attention and Len looked down the short security hallway toward the door. There, just at the corner, he saw a body drop with an ungraceful grunting noise, shaking and seizing, to the floor. He recognized Barry’s forehead just peeking around the angle to see into the vault. The damn snoop had survived. Len grinned at the realization before he caught the significance of the fact that Barry had apparently tripped and fallen to the floor. He heard the buzz echo into the vault then.

Just before the sound of stomping boots.

Lewis turned and looked toward the door then, gems and bomb-trigger both in hand.

“What the hell is this-” Lewis’ disapproval was interrupted by a nervous shout down the short hall behind Barry. The shadow of an officer cast out from the propped open vault door, what was probably a weapon trained on Barry on the floor as his partner advanced to take on the Snart duo. The officer appeared in the hall then, looking armed for bear and nearly as frightened.

“Freeze! CCPD! You’re under arrest!”

Len looked to his father, eyes wide as their plans came to a drastic and complete stop. Amidst the distraction offered by the stampede of boots down the hall, he wasted no time in shooting his father with the cold gun. The blast froze the bomb trigger first, the cheap plastic transmitter splitting and shattering like glass before the beam had even touched Lewis’ hand. Len let it go as long as he dared before the nervous young police officer started looking serious about shooting him.

As his father keeled to the floor, swearing and spitting in surprise, Len held the gun up, hands in the air. Another three officers ran into the room, weapons drawn as they barked orders that Len already knew by heart. One grabbed the gun from Len’s hand and kicked him to his knees, another saw to Lewis. That one got on his shoulder radio to call for an EMT to the scene. Someone was groaning and complaining and it sounded like Lewis. Oops.

Len was searched and he allowed it. He deserved it; he had one shot at taking his father out and he had pulled up too soon, hadn’t finished the job once he signed on for it. That kind of rookie mistake deserved a hard kick to the teeth and some evaluation time.

Next came the handcuffs. Same old routine, but a little different atmosphere. His dad was bitching and moaning, and Len had never been arrested _with_ him before. And the formerly dead Barry Allen stood at the end of the hall, staring at him as another officer got him to his feet to read off his rights. Not Barry’s usual side of the cuffs, and Len was struck by an odd sense of nostalgia.

“What the... what did you do? We had it handled- she was in the clear...” Barry said to him. That was welcome news and Len smiled; Barry had come through even when he was dead. He was just a little slow sharing the memo.

“It was an accident,” Len stated, for the record. “The officers _surprised_ me.”

“Crap...” Barry looked almost panicked. Like somehow he hadn't thought through that committing a felony robbery wouldn't potentially result in a visit from the cops.

“Look,” Barry said to the beat cop holding his arm. “Can I speak to the scene command-”

“You!” howled Lewis, stealing Len’s attention away from Barry. The EMTs had his father on a stretcher and it popped up so he was a little closer to Barry’s level again. He was handcuffed to the support bar on one side as the EMTs worked on securing and stabilizing his frozen shoulder. All the same, he tried to point at Barry. “You are _DEAD_! This is on you! You! Will regret _crossing me_ -”

“Aww, lay off him, _Pops_ ,” said Len, a dangerous smirk on his face. “He was just trying to help.”

Barry straightened up, catching the implications Len was playfully tossing out for the other officers.

“Woah! Wait! I didn't-”

The scene commander, probably some detective, showed up then. “Tell it to your lawyer, Allen. And you’ll probably need to explain a few things to the Chief while you're at it.”

“This is _sooo not_ what it looks like,” Barry started.

“Right,” added Len, with more than enough sarcasm. Maybe Barry was having a bad time of it, but Len was amused. Barry scowled at him as the officers escorted him and his father out, Lewis still shouting threats and obscenities at Barry’s alter-ego “Sam” and the general existence of the police force world wide.

A few minutes later, Barry - very much alive, if quite unhappy- was helped into the backseat of the police cruiser. Right next to Len. He felt good about the day; his sister was safe, his father was in a helluva lot of pain that wouldn't go away anytime soon, and the Flash’s alter-ego was getting a crash course in how the other half lived. It was a wonderful thing to get to witness, just _once_.

“Did you plan this or something?” Barry asked him.

“Hardly,” replied Len. “But I work with what I get.”

 

\----------


	2. Chapter 2

After all the drama of the long day, Len had actually looked forward to the downtime in a cell by himself. Central City PD had a big enough lockup that Len didn't usually have to share for very long, if ever, and it was a change of pace from having an overgrown child for a roommate. To say nothing of the alternative at Iron Heights, where they were lucky it was limited to just two inmates max per cell. So after putting in his statement, cooperating like the Good Son and parroting everything Lewis Snart said, Len got to go to a cell all by himself.

His asshole father went to the hospital to waste time trying to force them to heal frostbite that went halfway up his forearm. Len could have told the man that there was no fix for the cold gun’s damage, but he didn't want Lewis to change his mind about demanding medical care. Better he bitch at a bunch of doctors and nurses than be anywhere in lockup again where Len would have to listen to him.

Momentarily in a place of acceptance for the hand he had drawn - or at least, specifically, removed from his father’s use - Len stretched out on the lower bunk in his spacious CCPD corner unit in holding and tried to relax. And then the gate opened and the peace was quickly dashed. Len frowned at the intrusion.

“Oh, this is great,” said Barry as he stepped inside. Len raised an eyebrow at him.

“ _This_ is unexpected,” Len said. Barry huffed an unamused laugh.

“Right,” said Barry. He leaned against the wall opposite the bunk and slouched. “Because you _expected_ they’d let me walk after you and your father both told them I had helped you.”

One curious brow arched, Len sat up, swung his legs off the edge to sit facing Barry. “Well... you did.”

Barry narrowed his eyes and seemed quite annoyed at him specifically. “No, I helped your _sister_. Remember that part? Where your sister needed help, and I said I’d come through for you, and I _did_?”

Funny how the man forgot the details when it was convenient. Brilliant, sure, but still an idiot.

“If I’m not mistaken, you came to me to join the _team_ ,” replied Len.

Giving up, Barry shook his head. He actually could recognize a losing battle when he saw one. Good for him.

“You know what. _Fine_. Whatever,” said Barry, dismissing it for the sake of his sanity. “But we had a deal. On the _other thing_. This doesn't absolve you from that.”

Len feigned confusion. “Other- ohh... you mean our speedster friend?”

“Yes...”

“Do you think it would get me a _Get Out of Jail Free_ pass?”

“I can _guarantee_ you that it won't right now,” replied Barry. “You’ve run my name into the ground with the department already.”

Len leaned forward a bit, eye to eye with Barry where he had slouched to the floor. “Then why would I waste what I know on _this_ , now, if there's nothing in it for me?”

“That's... creepy, but fair. I’ll take it,” said Barry, reluctantly. He met the man’s cold stare evenly. “But you know it's wrong to drag me down with you on this. We saved your sister.”

“What, so I owe you? For her?” asked Len. Barry floundered a little.

“Not exactly, but-”

“Fine. You want favors then? If this goes south, _if_ you don't get to go right on back to your happy little double life tomorrow, look me up in Iron Heights. We can look out for _each other_ in the yard,” said Len. He had lost patience with the attitude already, allowing more anger in. He had already gone rounds with some smug, smart ass detective that night and he didn't want to deal with it from some high and mighty kid in his own cell, too. “I had a clear record before this, remember? Life isn't _fair_. But you’re too important for this to touch you, Barry Allen. You've got connections. _You’ll_ be fine. So please. _Shut. Up._ About your problems. Some of us were trying to sleep.”

“Right.” Barry had to work to get his words back. He seemed more surprised than anything. Barry stood up, scrubbed at the back of his neck and then his face, paced a few steps, and jumped up onto the rickety old metal cot. The springs bounced and squeaked. He cringed.

“Sorry! About the... noise.”

It was silent all around their cell after that. The entire holding area, with its rows of barred off holding boxes, was ridiculously empty because they had already done a transport to Iron Heights that day. Len could have heard a pin drop if there was anyone else in the room to drop one. Instead, he heard Barry squeaking around on the cot like a squirming five year old who didn't want to take a nap. Damnit.

Len stifled an annoyed sigh as he stared up at the imprint of the man’s body through the thin mattress above him. He realized that it didn't say anything good for Barry’s chances with the department that, with all the wide variety of choices they had in overnight holding cells, they chose to stick him in with the known murderer. It likely had more to do with wanting to sneak confessions or something than wishing Barry dead overnight, but the possibility still existed.

It was probably still a hazing. If there was anything Len was certain of, as the criminal son of a former cop, it was that cops could be assholes, even to their own kind. Barry was in there as bait maybe, some kind of trap, but the department was just playing him. They wouldn't go after him for anything. The Flash would hit the streets the next night and Len would still have to worry about the pain in the ass when it came time to bust out. That was just how the world worked.

 

\---------

 

There was another visit from the detective the next morning. Along with a shitty public defender.

“It seems there's been a mixup on your paperwork, Snart,” Detective Johnson said. He stood at the gate to the cell with no apparent inclination to open the door just yet, so Len stayed seated to deal with him.

“Damn, I guess without the paperwork we’ll miss that twenty-four hour part of the process, huh?” Len asked. He looked to the low-paid attorney who stood next to the detective. The man wore a cheap suit and looked like he drank too much. He wasn't the sharpest. He wasn't going to protest any rights that got trampled.

“Oh, we’ll get you to the courthouse on time,” the detective assured him. “We’ll just start up a new file, add it to the slate you've already got. But we want to know what you know about your files all disappearing from the shelves.”

Len smiled, darkly amused. “I’ve been many things in my life, detective. But I promise, a file clerk is not one of them. I haven't touched your files.”

“Come on, Snart. We know you worked with Allen. You guys are some kind of buddies. So he gives you access, you get the records pulled and burned, suddenly you’re looking at a first offense instead of your _fifth_ third offense... pretty sweet deal.”

“It is. Damn, I wish I had thought of it before you did,” drawled Len. “Too bad it wouldn’t work out as easy as all that, anyway. But it’s a good thought. You tried. _Gold star._ ”

Johnson lost the fronted good mood then. “What’d you do with your records?”

“Nothing. Not a single thing.” Len stood up then, resigned to dealing with the man more head-on than casual. Idiot meat-head cops. He stood by the gate, hands in his pockets as he dealt with the two representatives of the fine, unbroken law enforcement system. “See, what you’re suggesting I did isn’t actually possible. If you’re completely married to this stupid suggestion that Barry somehow gave me access to my files, let’s look at that, just a minute.”

He paused to be sure he had the detective's attention. His supposed attorney didn’t have anything at all to say about the potentially self-incriminating thought experiment Len was about to engage them on, so Len knew without a doubt that the man was a formality of the process and not worth the fees he would never be paid. Len leaned a shoulder into the gate, his way of making sure it stayed closed without anyone getting the bright idea that they had to move him to an interrogation room or something stupid. He didn’t have enough to say on the matter to tolerate it.

“First, you’re supposing all my records are kept in one place. Which any idiot who’s been around the system at all can tell you just isn’t the way it works. I’m on file at the courthouse, I’ve got a record with the department, the DMV has nothing polite to say to me, I’ve got my face plastered on the pin-up boards at the freaking _Post Office_... That’s just the tip of an iceberg’s worth of information out there. All these places have paper copies. And Barry Allen is a CSI. _He_ doesn’t hold the keys to any of those places. He’s a lab geek. So how exactly is he supposed to sneak me into all these different places, help me dig through every case that’s ever once mentioned my name, and make me disappear?”

Johnson had no answer to that, judging by the way his cheeks went pink and his ears went red. Len nodded.

“He can’t. Not without a lot of cooperation, from a lot of people along the way, right?” he asked. He offered up a shrug. “So like I said. It’s a great idea. I would love to have personally _burned_ every file with my name on it. But I didn’t do it. And your Boy Scout CSI is not equipped to help me out with that.”

It seemed to have stung the detective’s pride a little. He didn’t have much to say about anything after that. Johnson left the attorney to stand at the cell door and discuss the plea at the arraignment. Because it was being treated as a first offense, Len figured he wouldn’t make any waves with it. Just plead guilty and get back to Iron Heights so he could get back out on the streets faster. It would take him a few weeks, but that prison couldn’t hold him. And it would keep them from sniffing too much further into his missing records.

His state-funded attorney thought it was a great idea. Open and shut case, no messes to clean up. He would be home to his bottle of gin by six pm and passed out by nine.

And yet, somehow, when they got into the courtroom later that morning, Len’s attorney had completely forgotten about the plan to plead guilty.

“Defendant pleads not guilty, your honor,” were the actual words the man said in court. They were the actual opposite of what Len had told the man to say. He stared at the attorney, somehow not surprised. There were some days Len wished he could have afforded to stay in school when he was younger, just so he could have become a lawyer and not had to deal with the level of incompetence and bullshit that surrounded him on his chosen career path.

 

\-------

 

After the disappointing day in court, Len was marched back to CCPD lockup to await transport to Iron Heights. There was no way the judge would have let him make bail, not guilty plea or not, so he had to sit it out until his preliminary hearing and then try again to make his lawyer listen to him. That was nice.

The transport to Iron Heights was delayed until late that night for some reason, according to the officer with the cell keys, but Len was locked up in one of the temporary cells to sit by himself on a bench in a barred off box. Len still got the corner, two walls made of brick and cement while the others were made of overlapping metal bars. Probably a safety precaution but Len knew he wasn't going to be there long enough to cause any trouble. He wasn't forced to share a cell with Barry this time and they were both better off for it. He took a nap in the shadows by the wall and embraced the quiet by mentally replaying where had gone wrong on the heist. Everything had been perfect, until he blew his shot at ending his asshole father. He had to figure out what had happened so it didn't happen again next time. Because there _would be_ a next time.

The quiet contemplation was interrupted by the door of the holding room opening wide. Len stifled a sigh and looked to see what was up. Further down the rows of barred boxes that made up the holding cells, Barry stood to greet visitors. Important visitors, as it turned out. Barry’s detective foster-father brought him none other than an Assistant DA and a mayoral-hopeful from the fair city of Starling. The kid had friends in high places, everywhere. Len rolled his eyes and stared at the wall, kept his head down to avoid being noticed.

The problem was, of course, that lurking back in the shadows meant they didn't know he was there. Len didn't get to return to peace and quiet, he got to listen in as one Oliver Queen not so subtly threatened Barry’s life on behalf of an over-caffeinated hacker named Felicity and demanded answers. And, because Barry had gotten himself in trouble, all by himself, like an adult, Barry told them to talk to somebody else for answers. Because Barry was an adult who took ownership of his own bad calls, Len reasoned to himself, amused.

He knew who Cisco was, knew who Barry was relying on to pass along information that couldn't be spoken of inside the police department. And Barry knew how the department worked. He had learned caution. So it wasn't an entirely wasted experience for the Flash. There were some days Len was amazed the super metahuman defender hadn't met his death already, as brash and thoughtless as he could sometimes be in his hurry.

“What did you _do_ , Allen?” Oliver Queen wanted to know. He was louder than he probably intended and harsh enough to make Len look over at them. The man posed no threat but there were some people Len knew had to be kept eyes on; he had the suspicion Barry was good at finding those types.

Barry sighed, hesitated, then tried again in a whisper that still carried through the empty bars to Len. “I tried to keep Lewis Snart from killing anyone else. I just wanted to monitor them, know where they were. Things went sideways and I ran out of time, couldn't call for help from the PD because Lewis was going to kill his next target if it didn't go perfect...”

It was touching, really. That Barry and his compatriots had thought enough of Lisa to count her as one of the many faceless potential victims out there. Len saw it as an exploitable weakness and recognized why his sister had gone after them for help, but he saw that Barry really was trying to prevent harm. Actual harm, prevent actual abuse, keep people alive when they were otherwise scraping bottom.

For all Len loved chaos and the thrill of breaking the rules, he saw that Barry’s self-appointed job was harder. Most people would shirk a responsibility as important as that. But he hadn’t. And he had tried to protect Len’s little sister, which, historically, was something that Len had only ever been able to do by himself. Barry didn’t act out of some arrogant power grab, that wasn’t why he obeyed rules or enforced them. The idiot did it to help people. And it hadn’t gotten him very far in life, sitting in the police department lockup where his own co-workers had put him. Len rubbed at a growing headache along his brow and leaned on his knees, thinking over the past few days. He tried to tune their conversation out but that wasn’t something he was very good at.

And then Barry’s lawyer spoke up, complaining. “We know he was doing what he needed to do for Flash. But I can't exactly use Flash as an authority in this. If this were any other case, it would be best to plea for a lighter sentence but we can't risk that here.”

Head in his hands, Len looked over toward the group at the other end of the bank of cells. Barry was screwed. The system he worked so hard to defend would do it to him. Len had known Barry’s father at Iron Heights, when he was younger and a punk thief with small hands who was, quite frequently, left to serve time in his own father’s place. Henry was a class act all his own, had never asked for any trouble and had done more than his fair share in keeping Len out of it in the yard. He had said more than once he never wanted to see his kid inside the system. And Len was just the kind of person who would put Henry’s kid right there on the edge of it and let him dance. He squinted down at the floor, trying to sort out what felt annoyingly like guilt over it.

“You’re not my lawyer,” Barry announced down at the end of the room. Queen was on his way out but he didn’t seem disturbed by the point.

“No, just your friend. So _your friends_ will help you out with this. And, when you’re out, we’ll hold you down so Felicity can kick your ass,” said Oliver with a shrug. “That's how this works.”

The lady ADA nodded. “As your lawyer, I can verify everything he just said is true.”

Len kept his head ducked as the group walked away a moment later. Important people were invested in Barry and they couldn’t help him, they didn’t have enough to bail him out. The man’s lawyer was his friend but she was scraping at straws for Barry, and that was _before_ Detective Johnson tossed Captain Cold’s missing criminal record at him. Len knew everything was going to go sideways on Barry. He knew, too, that he hadn’t helped at all. But it was too late to do anything about it at that point.

Lewis had Barry marked as the source of all his current problems. The dumbass prick even blamed Barry for Len’s gun “misfiring” because he found out Barry was the only remaining owner of S.T.A.R. Labs, which meant that Barry’s company had made it. They were lucky Lewis couldn’t afford a lawyer or the man would try to sue him for it. And if Barry’s lawyer couldn’t get the kid out of the CCPD lockup, that meant he would end up in the yard at Iron Heights. With Lewis Snart. The failed heist and the busted arm both rested at Barry’s doorstep for Lewis and the man would take it all out on Henry Allen’s kid, when that kid was still soft and sheltered in a white-bread suburban life. He wouldn’t have a chance. The Flash would do alright, but Barry was just a dirty cop who pissed off Lewis.

_Shit_.

Len slumped back against the brick wall to stare at the ceiling. Barry needed a backup plan or Central City was going to lose the Flash to a maximum security prison for good.

 

\------------


	3. Chapter 3

Given the evening crowd in the downstairs lockup at CCPD, Len expected the prisoner transport to be a lot more crowded. Instead he was walked into a nearly empty truck, the only other future Iron Heights inmate being Barry. It wasn't welcome news, if he was honest with himself. Until seeing the younger man looking small and lost in the back of the truck, Len had hoped his fancy lawyer and his connections within the department would have left Barry free and clear from charges by the end of the day. Obviously that wasn't in the cards.

As Barry stared, the officer locked Len into the manacle ports to share with Barry, and then left. A glowing, white-blue light bounced around from the ceiling to keep the back of the sealed off truck from going black, like felons were afraid of the dark. Len was willing to bet that just then, Barry Allen was afraid of the dark. He was still human and this was not the man’s usual view of the world.

“Well. I didn't think this was the vault you wanted to break into,” Barry said, complaining as much as taunting. “It's mobile. No gems or anything valuable stashed inside. Free room and board for a while though.”

“Yes, Barry. I am _obviously thrilled_ with this turn of events,” said Len. He sighed, rolled his eyes and shuffled on the seat to settle in for the ride. Barry was obviously fine, or at least hid it well. He let his attention drift to the small window in the back doors as the truck started up and they prepared to leave.

The silence hung around, not exactly uncomfortable. They were hardly friends, and Barry was just a little angry with Len’s helpful sarcasm, so it was understandable in the cramped space. They sat directly across from each other with the manacles looped together through the same rung in the floor so they couldn't really move out of each other’s leg room. It was, mostly, boring. Len liked things more interesting so he opened his mouth.

"So... how was your day?"

Barry let out a short, unamused laugh at the question. "I'm going to Iron Heights thanks to you, so obviously, this is a _great_ day."

"Oh good. Allow me then to make it better," said Len, setting the bait.

“How?” Suspicious, Barry arched an eyebrow at him. He looked to the handcuffs to be certain they were secured because that sounded just enough like a threat. Len pretended not to notice and maintained a false cheer.

"Well. The good news is they don't think I _personally_ hit delete-all on my criminal record," he said. Barry looked a little pale; it seemed the detective hadn't dug up enough solid proof on the subject for the prosecuting attorney to hang more charges on Barry over it.

"That's the good news?" Barry asked.

"Good for me. At least I'm not _you_." Len smiled at him. Barry slumped a little on the bench.

“They think I did it?” he asked. Len nodded.

“He offered a plea if I’d flip on you,” he said. Barry sunk back against the protected metal wall of the transport truck. Len watched him, curious. “Don't worry. I didn't single you out. I didn't say anything. They sent me a shitty public defender. I don't plan on saying anything at all.”

“That's not what Johnson said,” Barry replied. Len shrugged.

“Who’re you gonna believe? Me or the guy who's trying to put you in prison?” he asked. Barry fisted his hands around the shared manacles, tugging on Len’s hands as he did.

“You _did_ put me in prison, Snart! And now you’re sitting there pissed at me about it somehow when I’m not the one who changed the plan,” said Barry.

That wiped the smug taunt from Len’s face and he leaned forward on his bench again. He pulled the same trick Barry had, except when Barry yanked on the chains just to get attention, Len did it just to reel him in. Barry resisted and pulled back and they reached a stalemate of sorts staring eye to eye over their knees.

“You changed the plan. _You_ weren't supposed to be here,” said Len, his frustration and anger at the screw ups involved sounding harsh. “Now they're looking into my files. I can't just disappear again. It's a tangled shitstorm and it's all because you didn't run away when you were supposed to. You’re too important to be here, you bring too much attention, and I’m stuck figuring out a new plan.”

“Or you could, you know, accept your debt to society and serve whatever your prison term ends up to be,” said Barry. He sounded concerned so maybe he had listened.

“That’s easy for you to say,” returned Len. “You’re here on some kind of cop hazing, a little ‘Scared Straight’ BS and you’ll be out the second your lawyer figures it out.”

“If they go after me for your record, I’ll be there _somewhat_ longer than that,” said Barry.

Len rolled his eyes. “I _told_ _them_ you didn't do it.”

“Pretty sure they consider you a professional liar,” pointed out Barry. Annoyed, Len shrugged it off. But they stopped talking after that. Len dropped his hold on the manacles and leaned back against the wall again. Barry stayed leaned on his knees, head bowed as he stared down at the chains on the floor. He sighed and scrubbed at his face.

“Look. Did you mean it when you said you’d back me up in there?” he asked. Surprised at the question, Len glared at him, waiting for the punchline.

“Because I know I'm gonna need it. I've got enough people after my head right now. I can't take care of it by myself and I know it. So I just... I guess I want to know who’s side you're gonna be on.”

Len’s anger mellowed out to suspicion. “That depends. Who’s side are you on?”

Barry pointed at the locked doors of the transport van. “I’m _here_ , aren't I? And as we have now fully established, I shouldn't be. So I think that’s pretty obvious.”

Frowning at him, Len considered it. The kid was so screwed when they got behind the walls; he would either get picked off by one of the gangs as easy prey, or he would out himself as the Flash and get sent off to M-Ward for an automatic sentence. Not that Len was any kind of do-gooder, but Central City did need someone like Barry around to pick off the problem metas climbing out of the woodwork lately. And Barry’s father had helped Len out a few times. He could return the favor, clean up his ledger.

Finally Len nodded. “I meant what I said.”

“Truce then?” Barry asked. He sat up enough to offer a hand to shake on it. Len hesitated, didn't fully trust the kid knew what he was asking. But he finally managed to shove back the paranoia and accepted.

“Allies,” he promised.

 

\----


	4. Chapter 4

They had a crowded unloading area at the prison. Len shoved at Barry to keep him a step behind as they walked out of the truck, a hint. He said he’d look out for the guy in the yard and if he didn’t want to get dead by lunch the next day, he had to start paying attention from the start. Barry fell in line and didn’t argue, his eyes as big as dinner plates as he took everything in. Len just set his jaw and tried to ignore the giant “ _Kick Me!_ ” sign that Barry had for a _face_. His curiosity would be enough to get him killed. That meant a lot of work had to be done.

In a crowd of tough guys, even the younger, scared ones who didn’t know what they were walking into yet, Barry stood out as the coddled, upper-middle class kid that he was. He didn't belong with the crowd. He was strong and he was smart, but it was an entirely different kind of both. Thankfully he seemed smart enough to notice, so he didn’t ask questions, didn’t start spouting nervous science babble or otherwise run his mouth. He stuck to Len because he was familiar, stood at his heels to follow his lead. Len kept his word and tolerated the shadow, but when Barry crowded his shoulder, he glared in warning. Barry took in everything and didn't argue the hint, just took a step back like he was supposed to.

“Don't crowd the bulls like you crowd me or you'll have both sides gunning for you,” Len ordered, quiet enough to avoid catching attention but loud enough for Barry. Barry blinked over at him, confusion plain. Len rolled his eyes.

“The wha-”

Len cut him off. “Bulls. Guards. The bosses that run the yard-”

“Corrections officers?” asked Barry. For some reason it amused him. “One big happy barnyard.” The attempt at humor that didn't quite catch on. Len shook his head.

“Either way, you’re on the menu with the omnivores, Scarlet. Pay attention.”

They went through the late-night processing without trouble, signing off on the forms, saying a fond farewell to their outside belongings. Len noticed Barry didn’t leave much with the guards, everything else already gone. There was three hundred in cash in Len’s wallet that he knew he would never see again, so he figured Barry had gotten at least a little inside warning of the thieves behind the scenes in lockup.

The lesson learned from donning the prison jumpsuit was that Barry Allen without the Flash was easy prey in a room full of thieves and murderers. Watching the man’s face, Len could tell that it wasn’t until he had swapped out jeans and his hoodie for the stiff linen cargo pants, white tee and collared button-down shirt that reality started to settle in. Barry was in it, literally up to his neck in that moment, and he lost all color. Len was returning to an old haunt, but Barry was the one who had seen the ghost.

Once the manacles were off and the group of new prisoners were lead off to their new minimalist apartment community dwellings with their free mini-travel kit for the hygienic Hail Mary, Len kept Barry in front of him in the lineup, in his space to keep him from mentally shorting out. He grabbed him by the arm or shoved at him to steer him, keep him present, keep Barry from staring or looking too much like a “fresh fish” in the tank.

At the end of another hallway, the group of fifteen newbies waited with their officer escorts as another door was unlocked. Barry looked around, wide eyed, as they stepped out of the hallway into the cell block. It was three levels of closed cells with narrow walkways to navigate them, a massive empty space in the middle and a glass-arched ceiling far out of reach even to the most adventurous of climbers. It was night out, cloudy. Len glanced at his new pet-project just in time to see Barry’s mouth drop open.

“You are your own worst enemy in this place,” Len told him quietly. “I can _smell_ the fear off you.”

Barry glared at him for it, rolled his shoulder to try to claim some of his personal space back. “They don't exactly hand out cologne in the mess-kit.”

Len ignored the informational brochure being barked out by the CO leading the new fish to the cells.

“Your face is your problem. Stop looking like a lost puppy or someone's going to kick you,” said Len, quiet and unheard thanks to the noise of men in cages beyond. “And I'm not going to be with you to fix your face before somebody rearranges it for you.”

In a drastic reversal, Barry caught him by the arm that time. “What do you mean? You said-”

Len rolled his eyes and nodded up ahead to the front of the line. One at a time, prisoners were being passed off to cells, most of them already occupied. One of the new guys would be waved inside, an officer would bang a baton on the bars, and the door of the cell would rattle shut. Barry would have an unknown cellmate to deal with. He hadn't considered that. The kid was smart, observant even, but sometimes the connections stalled out before they hit their natural conclusions. Something like anger showed on his face as he finally put the pieces together. Len patted his back, amused to see it. “There. Keep that face, fish. You might make it.”

Walking past men in cages, the group was treated to grumbled threats, strange whistles and catcalls, and the random sarcastic “Welcome to the Heights!” The fifteen new inmates dwindled down to ten prisoners by the second level. Twenty cells in a row, twenty cells across the empty floor, and twenty per side per level as they went up. Just ahead of Len, Barry looked around like he was counting every cell and every occupant behind the closed gates. It took everything in Len not to reach out and push the younger man over just to disturb whatever mental math he was doing. He was paying attention, that’s what Len needed Barry to be doing then if he wanted to keep him whole in that place. But he was an easy target for pranks while he did it. They had so much work.

Around the middle of the second level, Barry was pulled forward by the officer in the lead. He was waved into an empty eight by five cell. White-on-gray walls, painted metal surfaces that tried badly to disappear into the background. There hadn’t been an occupant in a while from the looks of it, with the rolled up ratty mattresses over the thick wire suspension on the bunk bed. It was otherwise just a standard cell to Len. He started to spy on it through the bars but the officer shoved his shoulder to push him inside behind Barry. That was a surprise and Len looked back at the officer to make sure it had been intentional. The guard nodded, shooing Len away from the gate. Then the officer at the door caught Barry’s attention.

“You good, Allen?” he asked. A nod to Len cleared up what he meant by it. “West said he owed you.”

Len scoffed at that and rolled out the mattress so he could dump his stuff on the bottom bunk. The officer banged the baton on the bars and the door rolled shut on squeaky gears. Barry stood in the narrow space between the bunk and the wall, still holding the toiletry kit, watched the door close, stared out at the small world beyond the bars. The other prisoners trailed past, the noises faded somewhat. He looked like he was in shock, which was about what Len had expected from him. He sat on the edge of the bunk and tried to take a mental inventory; he hadn’t expected to be put in with Barry. Plans had changed. He needed to reprioritize a few things in the mental list.

“Unpack, Barry,” said Len. “We’re in for the night. Lights out soon.”

Somehow Barry could fidget while he put things away and set up his bed. He put effort into ignoring Len sitting at the edge of the lower bunk, in his space because there was no other place to be.

“I owe you, huh?” Len asked. That was a perception problem that they were going to get sorted out and quick. He had a reputation to look out for and he wouldn’t let Barry start it around that he owed a cop anything. Especially not when Len’s father would be out there on the block somewhere sometime soon. One dirty cop on his case was plenty.

“No,” said Barry after a pause. There was a noticeable hesitation, but Barry was a bad liar, so he didn’t mean anything by it. They had discussed it before; they were even.

“Allies,” Len said. Barry nodded. The matter was settled before it began. They could sleep in peace for the evening without borrowing any trouble while Barry was still shocked stupid by being on the wrong side of the gates.

When Len leaned down to take his shoes off, his shoulder brushed Barry’s hip. Barry sparked excess energy, zapping the both of them with electricity thanks to the metal bed frame. It surprised more than it hurt, but it wasn’t something Len wanted to mess around with, either. He jumped up, away from the bed to put his back to the wall.

“What was that?”

Barry didn't look back at him, just finished his chore with the bed. Then he jumped up onto the bunk, sat on the edge with his legs hanging down to claim some space. He shook his head, spread his hands apologetically. “I haven't been on a run for... two days? I'm not used to _storing_ the energy, I guess?”

That raised more questions than it could possibly settle and Len pointed at the bed. “You are aware that is metal, yes?” he asked. Barry nodded. “And metal conducts electricity.”

“You’ll be fine. I promise,” said Barry. “I just have to figure out how to use up energy before I get to eat again.”

Len looked up at him, curious, a slow amusement on his face, but he didn't say anything. He shook his head. “Do push-ups. No one will notice.”

Barry at least considered it before he shrugged it off. “Except there's a catch,” he said. He pointed out the bars at the world beyond it. “If I can see them, they can see me.”

“There's a lot that goes on that you don't see, especially after lights out,” Len replied. He stood for a moment beside the bunk, testing the proximity to metal and Barry to be sure he didn't get sparked again. When he was satisfied it was safe, he took his spot on the bunk and lay down. It wasn’t the most comfortable mattress in Iron Heights, but the pillow was soft, not dead yet, so Len gave it passing marks. He stared at the bottom of the upper bunk, waited for lights-out to quiet the cellblock. He was very careful not to touch any part of the metal bed frame, though.

 

\-----

 

There was no peace and quiet in a prison, even after they cut the lights.

Some people in prison actually managed to sleep. Apparently Barry wasn't going to be one of them. The body on the top bunk twitched or reacted in some way to every little sound that caught his attention. It was distracting, considering it was a bunk bed and movement in one place transferred to the other. Len glared up at the lump in the mattress. There was no way Barry could sleep in that place, and accordingly, it seemed, he was going to make life difficult for Len. Barry was lucky that Len had already had worse cellmates than him. But for godssakes, he was tired.

When Barry poked his head over the edge of the bed and looked down at his cellmate, he saw Len looking alert, sharp eyes already meeting his. But the kid didn’t seem to interpret the glare it was intended as. Len had hoped to silence him and send him to sleep, and instead, Barry started talking.

“When do they do bed checks?” Barry whispered down at him. “When is breakfast?”

“Why?” Len asked. Barry hesitated.

“Because... Are we there yet?” It was a safe answer, a joke to dismiss it and a repeated question because he wasn't going to drop it. It was naturally suspicious, but damned if it wasn’t adorable to see Barry try to play. It was a surprising change in their relationship, as much as it could be called one.

“Am I supposed to threaten to turn this car around?” Len seemed amused but wasn't about to give ground. Barry tapped impatiently at the bed frame, mentally arguing with himself. He dropped down to the floor, crouched at the edge of the bed to lower his voice. Len narrowed his eyes at the intrusion of space but didn't move other than to lift up onto an elbow. He was fully curious now, despite his suspicions of the Boy Scout.

“I have _options_ , is the thing,” Barry said. “I have places I need to be tonight. I just have to know when I have to be back.”

That certainly caught Len’s attention. “Back?”

“I want to clear my name, man. I'm stuck here until they let me out. But the Flash isn't,” Barry explained.

“Pretty sure everyone out there,” Len nodded to the cellblock, “Will notice a lightning streak shooting past every night.”

 Barry shrugged it off. “I’ll go through the wall.”

 Len hadn't been expecting that revelation at all. It took him far too long to compose himself as he jumped through one idea after the next on how to use a meta who could walk through walls. Especially in a _prison_. “You can go through- _what_ \- Barry, I might kill you...”

“What? It's a thing-”

“Why the hell are you _here_?” Len asked. “If you can leave at any time, we should be _leaving_.”

“It would look kind of bad if I got back in the morning and my cellmate wasn't here, wouldn't it?” Barry replied.

Len looked at him flatly, unimpressed with Barry’s naivete. “Barry. I understand you have a sharp scientific mind, you have lead a particularly sheltered life. But it doesn't take a Field’s Medal to look around and realize you are currently in a high security prison. It _looks_ _bad_ that you're in here at all.”

“We’ve covered this,” Barry said. “I’m in here. The Flash _can't_ be. If I stay in here, I can't help people. And I can't move. I can't exactly explain the electric shock therapy to everyone who bumps into me. I have to keep moving.”

“That's science?” Len asked, already not happy with the answer. Barry nodded. Len dropped back onto his pillow to stare at the mattress Barry really didn't have to occupy if he didn't want to.

“I’ll bring back breakfast?” Barry offered, taking a wild shot in the dark. He was very bad at negotiation. Len looked over at Barry, eyes narrowed and disinterest plain.

“You’re going to just... leave? Every night. And _come back,_ every day,” he clarified. Barry nodded his head again.

“That's the idea,” he said. “I mean, think about it. It would look a little off if I go to prison and the Flash disappears. Then anybody on the force could figure out who the Flash is. There goes your _get out of jail free_ card.”

At least Barry had thought things through since the lawyers got involved.

“You owe me for this,” Len decided. “Big.”

“Ten days. That's all I need. That's it. I swear,” said Barry. “Laurel will get my case dismissed at the hearing, then I’m out of here.”

“ _We_ ,” said Len. “You want me to keep quiet when you go walkabout, then when you leave for the last time, you take me with you. Somehow.”

Barry hesitated to agree with that trade. “We can figure something out. Maybe Laurel can take your case-”

Len sat up on his elbow, looking for the physical leverage again. “Barry... don't. You agree to this or the second you leave at night, I raise the alarm. That way, you and me are here for awhile longer until you see things _my_ way.”

Barry narrowed his eyes at the dirty pool. “What happened to allies?”

“ _Flash_ walking through prison walls every night happened,” said Len. “If they do a headcount while you’re gone, I’m the one who gets sent to isolation. You can't bring back fresh air and freedom every morning. I’ll keep quiet, and I’ll help you out in here, but I want _your word_. When you leave, _I_ leave.”

“Fine! I’ll figure something out!” Barry managed to stay quiet about it but Len had him over a barrel.

“Barry...”

“Okay! You have my word, I will help get you out. When I leave, you leave.”

Len watched him a moment, then nodded. Len started sitting up as he whispered and Barry had to lean back on his heels to give him room. “They used to do a walk-through at 4am. Count is at 7am.”

“Used to?”

“I've been gone awhile,” Len pointed out. “I’ll take notes tonight, have a better timeframe in the morning. This should throw them off for now.”

Barry stayed down as Len started messing with Barry’s bed. That was technically against Len’s personal rules; as long as nobody messed with his bed, he didn't mess with theirs. But this was an exception, because Barry didn't know any better. It was enough of an oddity that he stood to investigate, standing just at Len’s shoulder as the man shoved a pillow and wadded up sheet under the blanket. In the dark, it looked like Barry in a weird, artless way, as long as no one looked from closer than six feet.

“Is _that_ what I look like to you?” Barry asked. It was a pointless joke, well below his standards. Len stopped moving, turned just enough to stare at Barry as he leaned against the top bunk. What the hell did he expect from a cell break on no notice?

But there was something else to Barry’s taunt, a bid for attention almost. Standing right next to each other, beside a bed, there was a surprising awareness on Barry’s face in the shadows. Len wasn't one for being touched, he didn't have enough people he trusted not to knife him in the back so he generally didn't like being crowded. Barry was harmless though, a do-gooder idiot who couldn't hurt flies without the Flash’s help, so the close quarters of prison life didn't bother Len. But suddenly and unexpectedly, Len realized that Barry was bothered.

That put a new spin on things entirely.

Barry coughed, nervousness up and on display. He raised a hand.

“I’m gonna go now...”

Len nodded approval. “Great idea,” he replied, still quiet. He didn't move at all, let Barry work around him to get to his not-an-escape plan. There was much more touching and bodily contact than probably necessary. After being shoved around by a group of guys all evening, it was nothing, just shared space. Except Barry was more aware of it and left in a hurry.

Amazed at watching the man disappear through the wall, Len was distracted from thinking about Barry’s behavior too much for a few minutes. He paced a little, moved up to lean on the closed gate to stare out at the lineup quad below. He was used to the nighttime noises in the cellblock, just so much static. But he listened to the human sounds that had scared Barry off.

The cellblock was usually on its best behavior after bringing in new blood because the new inmates had to be taught not to turn rat. Couldn't surprise them too much, too soon, or they'd go straight to the bulls. Fighting was overlooked as long as nobody ended up in medbay for it and in a system that thrived on quid pro quo, most everyone there longer than a day wanted the little cellblock ecosystem to stay that way. There was a fight across the hall, probably not one of the new guys because it was quiet; whoever got their ass beat tonight would want revenge on another night, and that was how it worked. As long as the guards stayed out of it.

There was no super hero of the cell block to break up the crimes that needed avenged, and someone like Barry would have a problem with their fairytale version of reality getting torn to shreds. It was a bizarre sort of miracle that Barry could just run away from the cells at night, it saved him and everybody else a lot of trouble.

Suddenly Len found himself at a strange moral crossroads. He actually wanted to shelter the annoying Scarlet Speedster. Barry was so out of his depth that he was obnoxiously nervous standing next to a cellmate in close quarters; it was either because he was afraid, or it was an innocent, unjaded mind struggling to skate by in the gutter. Barry held many opinions of him, but Len was pretty sure he wasn't afraid. And whichever the problem was, it would only get worse the longer Barry was exposed to the darker, night-side of the prison. What might happen if Len could keep Barry from direct exposure to the harder parts, help him hang on to those rose colored glasses he saw the world through? It might be possible.

 

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

It had been a surprisingly long night for Len. He wasn't used to worrying about bed checks. He preferred to sleep through them. Instead, he had to lie awake all night, listening for the jingle of keys and the tromp of boots on the stairs. It was too early in Barry’s incarceration to hang a sheet, especially if Barry had one of the guards looking out for him. That meant that there would always be at least one person who expected Barry to be in a predictable place, and there was no way to predict a CO’s shift to work Barry’s exits around a nosy guard.

It was going to be touch and go with the guards as it was. The COs who had processed Barry weren't exactly against him; they even apologized when they had to go through the embarrassment of checking for contraband on the way in. Len had never once heard a “ _Sorry about this..._ ” from one of the bulls, ever, in his life, no matter how many times he would live to bend over for them. And yet that was Barry Allen’s welcome to one of the most degrading parts of Iron Heights. The administration officers were polite. The cell block guards made sure to stick Barry in with his criminal compatriot, though, and that was going to be the larger test for Barry in the yard. The bulls who ran the yard had heard all the stories, they were jaded, they were underpaid for dangerous work, and they dealt with liars all the time. The guards on the yard would not believe that Barry had acted in the greater good.

With Len as his new bestie, the yard CO’s wouldn't be as likely to give Barry the kid-glove protective treatment. They were going to be walking a very fine line. Barry would attract all of the attention, and it was a coin flip on if he would be met with sympathy or suspicion. It meant they would have to be very careful, not step out of line.

There was a walk-through bed-check just before lights out, and then the next one was at four am on the nose. The schedule hadn't changed. And Barry needed to learn how to tell time. He missed the four am bed-check and Len had to sweat it out pretending to be asleep as the guard danced a flashlight around the cell and over Barry’s empty bed without noticing the lack of a body. Lazy bulls on the end of their shifts were sometimes a con’s best friend.

When he finally did show up, Barry was hardly two steps into the room before Len hissed at him from the bottom bunk, “You’re late.”

“How do you know that?” Barry returned, defensive. He went to the bunk beds and messed up the blankets so they no longer looked like they hid a sleeping body.

“They just sent someone by. Four AM patrol. _Three_ minutes ago,” Len told him. Barry sighed, tucked his forehead to his arms against the top bunk.

“Maybe they were early?”

Len stared up at him, not even entertaining the bullshit excuses. “You’re _late_.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow never gets here,” snapped Len. “You mean _today_.”

Barry fidgeted at the side of the bunk a moment before he finally nodded acceptance of the logic. Then he jumped up onto the top bunk and disappeared, aside from the squeak of the mattress. Len checked his watch, curbed his frustration. Too much slack and the man’s outside world laziness would screw up Len’s life inside, and he wasn't in the mood to forgive it. He was tired. And he was cranky.

And he was _irrationally_ pissed off that Barry could walk through walls.

 

\----

 

Len managed maybe an hour of sleep before the block broke out in the usual morning noise. The guards whistled and shouted and clanged batons across bars because it was time for breakfast. And so, because Barry was beyond starving, he woke up. Len was used to the routine and could have managed the orderly chaos in his sleep. He led the way out to the walkway in front of the cell. When Barry turned to head for the stairs, Len caught his arm and pulled him back to his side. He pulled him up to the yellow line in front of the handrail in front of their cell.

“Wait for count,” he advised. Barry looked around, eyes wide, taking everything in for the first time. Len didn't envy him the experience. When the count was done, the lines moved somewhat orderly across the room to get to breakfast.

The cafeteria was located outside of the block, right where Len had last left it, down a hallway that connected to checkpoints that filtered through who was allowed to access the prison library, the infirmary, and visitation. As they moved through, Len tried to give him the breakdown of how the day would go, where things were laid out, what and who he was dealing with in broad strokes.

“Which one is A-block then?” Barry asked.

“The hard-luck cases, the bad guys,” Len said, amused by Barry’s curiosity. “Isolation block is on A-block. Those waiting on death penalty sentences. They don’t see daylight much. But _their_ meals are catered.”

“Yeah, proper five-star hotel service, huh?” Barry turned his nose up at the hashbrown patties on his plate. Despite the spoiled attitude, the man had a plate overflowing with food and some wrapped in a napkin so he could pocket it for the morning. Len shook his head and finished up his own food.

“Let’s go,” he announced when he was done eating. Barry looked at his own plate, not quite empty, and scowled. He cheated, crowded food into his mouth with more speed than he should have around witnesses, and still managed to stand up just behind Len. Len made sure he was shown where the trays were to be put, and which of the doors out of the cafeteria went to the yard.

The yard was another world for the cotton-swaddled Barry. He wasn't used to living on the other side of barbed wire and rifle scopes. It took him a few minutes to actually walk at Len’s shoulder instead of just behind him like a shield. There were different sections to the yard that he had to be shown his way around, where different activities happened, places he could go and places he needed to avoid.

Part of that meant introducing Barry to people, which was a special kind of hell for Len. He had a puppy on a leash and knew without a doubt that the puppy would bite things or pee on things that he shouldn't. It was potential embarrassment and potential destruction with every interaction.

It didn’t make Barry any friends and it jeopardized a few of Len’s contacts to be seen taking care of a cop. Len had to think fast to come up with a cover story that worked for each con who asked about his shadow.

“What the hell are you doing with a cop, Lenny?” a rat-faced thief named Silver asked, showing bold disapproval compared to those who just glared and refused to talk around Barry.

“I needed a tech guy for the gig, and this one _volunteered_ ,” Len said. Silver squinted over at Barry.

“What, they don’t pay enough as cops?” he asked. Len caught Barry by the shoulder, keeping him on his leash when he was provoked. It was a subtle reminder to play along. Not to mention a reminder of the fact that Barry would get his face pounded in if he told the truth.

“I was bored,” Barry said. He tried to shrug it off. “I figured we’d get away with it if I could clean up the case afterward, and then Snart had to go and shoot his dad, make a scene...”

“Drama queen! Ha ha!” Silver backhanded Len’s shoulder, laughing like he believed it. Len didn’t exactly appreciate Barry’s adlibbing when it left him bigger messes to clean up.

“The gun’s tech was overcharged. I need to check the connections when I get it back,” he said as a cover.

“Right. The _gun_ did it,” said Barry. Len forced a laugh and slung an arm over Barry’s shoulder, tucking him close as a warning to shut up.

“I’ve already seen you die once this week, it shouldn’t hurt too bad to take you out myself,” Len reminded him whispering in his ear.

“So you _do_ care,” Barry returned, a mirror of the sarcasm. If the kid had the first actual _clue_ , Len might shoot himself, so he let the comment pass. He laughed from surprise but Barry only heard it because he held him so close in his space. The humor seemed to work with the cons around them, though, so Len loosened his hold a little.

It seemed to work toward their grander scheme in the yard that morning, too; Silver stuck with them, schmoozing with other people they encountered on the yard, helping sell Barry’s presence as a harmless dirty cop. More people tolerated the cop in their midst after those introductions and Len backed off on keeping Barry on so tight a leash. He let Barry wander more than five feet away without waving him over. With Silver helping work PR, Barry was able to sit on his own on the bleachers without being stared at, just another face in the crowd.

But he was still being watched. The story didn’t win over the hearts and minds of all the people in the yard in that hour outside in the cold. It seemed to clarify lines around Len, who was on the man’s associates list and who saw him as a threat.

Those first meetings were big clues as to how things would play out. Len had to make peace with his associates as he brought a dirty cop on board, had to assure everyone that he could contain the trouble he brought to their doorstep. Most in the yard knew Len was good for his word, they knew his reputation and how he worked his trade. Others gave him the benefit of the doubt but wanted no part of double-sided deals; Len figured they would keep their distance until Barry was gone. He wasn't going to try hiding the sheep in wolf’s clothing that was Barry Allen, CSI, so he had to pick his business partnerships carefully for the time being. Some he would prefer to just not acknowledge until the danger of the dirty cop had left the yard, and hopefully that wouldn't be long.

It was obvious that Barry was tired, but he still seemed to pay attention to faces, watched body language of the men around him. And he watched the way Len behaved around some of them, noticed when he stood between Barry and the new faces, or when he would step back and let Barry sink or swim on his own in conversation, and that seemed to determine how he behaved. It was nerve wracking. But somehow everyone survived the morning’s first round.

 

\----


	6. Chapter 6

Len counted himself lucky that they got Barry back to the cell without one of them getting knifed. He didn't want to even entertain the thought that maybe Silver’s over exuberance in latching on to Len’s pet-cop might have had something to do with it, but cons were crazy, so there was no way to ever know. Silver proved Barry was likable better than Len could, so Len let the newcomer hang around. He was a two-bit thief, doing a stupid amount of time for a smash-and-grab because he had smarted off to the judge at sentencing, so everybody knew Silver ran his mouth. As long as he talked more than Barry, Len didn't care.

In the cell, killing time until lunch, Len tried to keep quiet. He read a book and let Barry find his own trouble locked in a box. It didn't take him long. Tired or not, Barry seemed determined not to sleep while the door was safely locked. He stayed in his bunk maybe five minutes before he dropped down and started pacing.

“That’s original,” muttered Len. One more thing to ignore while he tries to read. Barry looked over at him, confusion on his face.

“What?” he asked. Len pointed vaguely at the beaten trail in front of the bunk.

“That.”

Barry got self-conscious and offended, crossed his arms and all but poured out his lower lip. “I told you. Too much energy to sit still.”

“Right, _science_ ,” said Len. He glanced up at Barry then. “You do you, Scarlet. It just happens I've seen it before.”

“What else is there to do in this place? Read, pace, do push-ups. Of course you've seen it before,” replied Barry.

“You’ll find a hobby,” said Len with a shrug. “Bring back a deck of cards or something next time you’re out.”

Barry went still, considering it. “I could do that?”

“Not exactly contraband. It's a deck of cards,” said Len. He narrowed his eyes over at Barry. “You play cards, right?”

Barry shrugged it off. “What, like poker? Yeah.”

“No, like _Go fish._ ” Len rolled his eyes. He went back to his book. Barry lurked at the edge of the bunk, his urge to pace worn out for the moment.

“When’s lunch?” he asked.

“In an hour,” said Len. He glanced up to see Barry checking the closed gate and the shadows it cast, like he was trying to figure out how visible the room was from the outside. Len waved the book to catch his attention. “No, you cannot go get a deck of cards _right now_. I _will_ kill you.”

“Okay, aside from the part where you won't actually kill me, and aside from the part where I’m not actually stupid, don't tell me what I can or can't do,” Barry said. It wasn't like they weren’t fair points, but Barry was blatantly missing Len’s point.

“I just answered the question you didn't ask out loud,” said Len. “Everyone out there can see in here when the lights are on. Do what you want, but it might as well be televised on CCTV right to the guard room during the day.”

Barry froze up, looked from the bars to the toilet only partly hidden by the bunks. “You’re kidding... right?”

Len shook his head. “It’s not meant to be a stay at the Ritz Carlton.”

“Oh my god,” muttered the once-again shell-shocked Barry. He looked over his bunk, probably trying to figure out how to hide the toilet to arrange even just five seconds of privacy. Len didn't say anything, just went back to his book. If Barry was anything like any other new kid on the block, it would be a few days of that lost-puppy look whenever those often overlooked rights suddenly disappeared before his eyes.

 

\------

 

The first potential problem waited until lunch. Barry had this thing with food, he had to eat a ton of it apparently, so he sat there forever on meal breaks. Len didn't want to let the kid sink or swim on his own just yet, but he could only sit at the cafeteria hall tables so long before boredom set in. He hated being bored.

“Time to go,” he announced when his own plate was emptied. Len didn't wait for Barry to catch up, either. Maybe he was trying to protect Barry from some of the prison, but he wasn't looking to coddle or nursemaid. Predictably, Barry dawdled. Len left his shadow to fend for himself at the table then, moving far enough away to not be babysitting but staying close enough to interfere if he had to.

He found a good middle ground by stopping at Roscoe and Jocco’s table to pay his respects to the two old-timers. The two ran the gym in the yard - what passed for one, anyway - and they were very good people to know when someone needed a little muscle behind their yard operations. They were friends of Mick’s and wanted to know why Rory wasn't on the same bid as Len this time around.

“Lewis made him sit the operation out,” Len said, simplifying drastically to hedge his bets. Mick and Lewis got along like oil and water, and Lewis was the one in Iron Heights, not Mick. “It wasn't quite... hot enough to hold his interest. So he stayed home.”

Roscoe and Jocco predictably found that hilarious. Len laughed along with them until he saw someone sit down at the table next to Barry not far away. It was TenK, one of the mid-level thugs who liked to shakedown the new fish in protection rackets. He didn't have the clout to steal cash or drugs, but he trapped the more gullible newcomers into some bad deals because they didn't know anybody to tell TenK to shove it. He wasn't exactly subtle about it so Len hung back to watch, to see how Barry handled the situation.

It looked like, whatever was said, Barry was smart enough to take a pass. The man finally abandoned his lunch scraps and started to leave.

“Aww, why you gotta be like that? You seemed so friendly, too,” Len heard TenK say to Barry as he turned away.

“Busy,” Barry replied. “Not interested.”

Len choked back the urge to laugh, unlike Roscoe and Jocco. They could kick TenK’s ass ten ways to Sunday and were amused by his games with the fish, knew someday he'd get himself killed at it and didn't care at all. Len’s only concern at the moment was getting Barry out the door before TenK’s pride caught up with his brain enough to realize his play had been witnessed and mocked.

There was some laughter and a few additional comments that followed Barry to the door. All the same, Len waited for him. Grabbed him by the elbow if he acted like he wanted to wander off as a clear message that it wasn't safe. So Barry hung around Len after that, sat quietly as they were approached in the yard by those who wished to welcome him back to the prison.

Barry’s name became an issue for the kid rather quickly after that; some wiseass discovered it rhymed with _cherry_ and Len wasn't in a position to correct it. Barry would have to defend himself from their talk, demand respect himself, and he didn't seem inclined to do that when he could keep Len between him and whatever bored bully showed up to sniff at him. It was no difference to Len anyway, as he had business to see to and could distract the cons away from Barry’s existence by talking about a job or a connection he needed to keep open.

“How long are you gonna be here for this time?” a thug named Carper asked. He was a resource guy on the outside, helped Len pull uniforms and the small things for some of his projects in the past. It was a tricky racket to run from the inside, but Carper was good for it so far. Len smiled mildly, shrugged it off.

“I like to keep them guessing. Maybe I’ll stay awhile,” he said.

“Your old man says he's out in three weeks tops,” Carper reported. He nodded at Barry. “Says he's taking your boyfriend with him.”

“He can try,” said Len. And, knowing his father, he knew that he would try, too.

Barry scowled at the bench in front of him, kicked it to get mud off his soft new shoes. “Also? Not the boyfriend.”

“Well, that wasn't exactly the word Snart used,” Carper laughed. Len huffed his annoyance at it but was surprised to see the pale scowl on Barry’s face. Given that the young man sat on the bench just below him, he shoved Barry in the back with his leg to get his attention.

“Words, Barry. Everything's got a label.”

Barry nodded but dismissed it. He wasn't stupid. He saw the image and reputation Len tried to maintain in the yard. And he knew well enough it was at least in part at Barry’s expense.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” Barry announced. It was as much a protest as declaration of freedom. Not to mention he had energy to burn. Len huffed in amusement but didn't say anything to it. He kept an eye out for Barry’s whereabouts but otherwise turned his attention to Carper.

“Look, the kid’s useful. Especially for a cop,” he said. “And Lewis wants him gone. So that’s going to create some problems.”

Carper whistled and shook his head. “Ya think?”

“There's a big difference in how my father and I see the world. You and I, we find a diamond that stands out, we know it’ll take awhile to unload for what it's worth. We plan for that. My father, he's gonna chop it up and piece it out, get rid of it for cheap,” Len said. He looked away from where he watched Barry at the phones to look at Carper. “You understand?”

“You’re playing the long game on this one,” said Carper. Len nodded.

“And for that, I need Barry to stay alive in here. So I’d appreciate some help in that. Just some back up to keep Lewis off him.”

“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” Carper said. He shrugged, nodded off toward Barry. “But you've got tail for a cellie. And he's a cop. It's not gonna be _just_ Lewis.”

“Yeah,” said Len. “That's the problem.”

“Too bad Mick’s on the outside,” said Carper. Len nodded, kicked at the bench under his feet. “Did you talk to Sanchez’ crew? You could probably work something out with them.”

“I've done some work for him before, that doesn't mean he likes me enough to stick his neck out for a whitebread cop,” Len pointed out. But he did consider it. He got distracted thinking of favors on the yard. “Remember Henry Allen?”

Surprised, Carper shifted to stare at Len. “That’s his kid?”

“Yep.”

“Damn. I dunno, man. You could just make the kid figure it out on his own,” said Carper. “Everybody else has to. His old man figured it out.”

Len rubbed at the growing headache between his eyes. “He’ll get himself killed.”

“Not anybody’s problem ‘cept his. You’ll get another dirty cop on the line when he's gone.”

The moral issues aside, Carper had a point. He just didn't have all the information and Len knew better than to trust him with it. Asking for help with the project was a risk enough, but Len knew he offered solid business with Carper that the man wouldn't be in a hurry to screw up any time soon, and information fell into that category. He knew Len was good for it.

“If you can cut me in on whatever you’re working him for, I’ll help vouch for the kid,” Carper said finally. “Maybe it’ll help get you some back up out here.”

That was an easy promise to make and Len offered a handshake deal to lock it in place.

“Who’ve you got on it so far?” Carper asked. Len offered a humorless smile.

“You,” he said. “The new kid Silver. Roscoe and Jocco if anything happens in their corner. And one of the guards, maybe.”

Carper’s eyes went wide. “You bought off a CO for this kid?”

Len pulled a face, annoyed. “No, he came with the kid. One of the kid’s resources. He’s a cop, remember.”

Carper let out another long whistle. “Man, you are in it. This is why we don’t babysit.”

All Len could do was nod his agreement. “It’ll pay off.”

“Yeah, right.” Carper shook his head, stood up to leave. Feet solidly on the ground, he looked back to offer up a half-hearted smile. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Len smiled back, snapped off a lazy salute. When he looked up to see Carper off, he happened to see a small scuffle in the general direction of the phones, up against the fence. He recognized the back of his father’s head and followed it to the inevitable trouble.

“Nah, what's bullshit is you had to put a _bomb_ in your daughter’s neck to get him to work with you at all, right? Len will work with a cop before he'll work with you. That's _gotta_ piss you off,” he heard Barry say, bold defiance despite being surrounded by men on Lewis’ payroll. “It's bullshit you couldn't get anyone to sign on to your team because you kill everyone you work with so the best help Len could find was another cop who had to clean up after your messes.”

Lewis stepped back, red faced and angry. He couldn't retaliate properly with one arm immobilized so he waved his flunkies’ attention to Barry again. “ _Hurt_ him.”

That’s when Len stepped between the cons near Barry and caught him by the shoulder. Barry tensed to take a blow and prepared to dodge.

“Hey _pops_... call off your dogs. I don’t feel like sharing my toys today,” Len ordered, stalling the attack. He started to pull Barry away from the fence they had cornered him into. The strangers doing Lewis’ bidding backed off, because nobody messed with his kids except Lewis.

“I’ve been getting an education, son,” said Lewis. The man was most definitely angry. He waved toward Barry. “Always interesting to learn that my boy would rather work with a cop than his own father.”

“Fascinating, right?” said Len, smiling in the face of it. “The family _drama_. Crazy that I might get a bit _pissed off_ when you go and put a _bomb_ in my little sister, hmm? Funny that I could trust another _cop_ to help keep her _safe_ when I couldn't just count on you to do the job without doing something _stupid_.”

“You need to learn how the world works, my boy,” said Lewis. Len just shook his head, squeezed Barry’s shoulder and tugged on him like an old friend.

“Nah, Dad. I know how the world works. I make a plan, it goes sideways on me, like my friend Barry here. I adjust the plan. I _don't blow the whole thing up_ when it _pisses me off_ ,” said Len. He still looked completely at ease despite the small voice in the back of his mind reminding him he was about to die. He even pointed at his dad. “That's what I learned from you, Dad. To control my _temper_. I don’t always want to break my toys.”

Lewis actually laughed at that, still angry but apparently accepting the hint. Len worked with it. He slung an arm over Barry’s shoulders to further pull him from the group.

“So to save your blood pressure, pops, let me worry about my cop-friend, alright? You just heal up, get back in fighting form,” Len said. He patted Barry on the chest, a bit rough but tolerable and trying to sell something Barry could understand. “I’ll keep this one out of everyone’s business. Take one for the team and all that.”

“I’m miserable company,” Barry chimed in. “He’s really making the sacrifice here.”

“Shut up, fish,” said Len. There was a quiet patience to the order, none of the anger that Barry had been expecting, so he obliged.

“Why are you throwing in with him?” Snart wanted to know. His son shrugged it off.

“I have a dozen plans for when things go sideways, pops. He's just one of them.”

That was hardly news to Barry, Len had basically said as much to him the night they were arrested. Hopefully Barry caught on and didn’t raise problems. Somehow Len was trying to keep the peace with his angry father. It wasn't in Barry’s best interest to start wars in prison so he followed Len’s lead. The plan worked. Lewis backed off as Len pulled Barry aside. On the other side of the yard, the guards started making noise that it was time to go in. So they went in, Len walking Barry in with an arm still slung over his shoulder. He didn't say anything about it until they were back in their cell.

“You did good,” Len said, nodding out toward the yard. “Keep that up.”

He stood against the wall as Barry jumped up on the upper bunk, unloaded what food he had left out of his pockets.

“I guess if _good_ just means I didn't get my ass kicked, yeah, sure,” Barry said.

“In this case, yeah. You didn't get your ass kicked, you didn't kiss anyone's ass, you kept your head. It worked. With him, for now, that's what you do,” Len replied.

“I don't know what I can say to him, man. I just popped off-”

“You can say what you want. He's not going to believe you. He's too arrogant and hotheaded to care,” said Len.

“Okay,” Barry said. “Here’s hoping I don't screw up whatever your plans are with him then.”

Len smirked at that, shook his head. “I'd like to see you try.”

“What about your plans with me? Since you just said you had some,” Barry asked. Len moved forward then, crossed his arms on the edge of Barry’s bed and looked up at him.

“I have you figured out, Barry. I know what makes you tick, the same as I know Lewis. There is not a single thing you could throw at me that I haven't already accounted for,” Len told him. “So if you want to try, alright. _Try me._ But you can't surprise me.”

Len was gambling on that, betting a lot, but Barry didn’t give him any indication that it wouldn’t pay off. Barry stared at him, an odd quirk to his lips, like he knew something. Len waited but Barry didn’t say anything else. He just nodded and settled in on the top bunk. He dropped down to his pillow and shoved Len’s elbow to get him off his space.

“I’m gonna catch some sleep. If that’s okay with your plans and all.”

It was mild, almost playful, and Len obliged. He dropped back away from the bunks, leaned against the wall instead. He looked out through the bars at the cellblock to hide the amusement.

 

\-----


	7. Chapter 7

Letting the metahuman phase through the wall was bound to have unpredictable side effects. Like when the guy came back talking about stupid ideas put in his head by people on the outside who had no idea what it was like on the inside. Barry and his team wanted Len to roll on his dad, tattle to the courts to clear Barry’s name. It was a nice idea and all but-

“No way in hell.”

There was no room for negotiation on that one, no matter how innocently Barry asked. He sat on the floor of their cell as Len sat on the edge of the bunk. Barry was lucky that Len was awake at all, it was a courtesy that he was engaged in the discussion, arms on his knees and hands clasped in the picture of devoted attention. They were both carefully quiet, determined not to be heard outside their cell. Oblivious to cellblock etiquette, Barry had hung his bed sheet up over the bars to dampen their voices further. And, no matter how amused he was by it, Len was absolutely certain that Barry was wasting their time.

“Are you sure?” Barry asked, scrounging for the winning sales pitch. “Because otherwise you’re potentially stuck with me popping in and out of the wall everyday for the next who knows how long. And you lose your blackmailed contact within the police department-”

“It’s adorable you think you’re the only one I’ve got.” Len was amused by the suggestion.

“And you lose your _get out of jail free_ card with your favorite scarlet speedster-”

“That’s slowly losing its appeal anyway.” Again, Len was amused more than annoyed.

“You are the only potential witness I’ve got,” Barry whispered at him. “And you promised to-”

“I promised to help on the yard,” Len said. “That does not in _any universe_ extend to the courtroom.”

“What about a written statement?”

“Already gave one of those,” Len reminded him. “And it matches the one my father gave. Because I’m not stupid. I don't snitch on my father. Nobody does unless they wanna get dead.”

“What if we found Lisa then?” Barry asked. “What if Cisco got her to testify-”

That was a line Barry was not allowed to cross. Nobody messed with Len’s sister, regardless of how saintly their intentions. Len took a knee right in front of him, caught Barry by the front of his shirt to pull him off the wall. It was enough to surprise and intimidate but not enough to hurt. It worked. Barry stared at Len, eye to eye, holding his breath.

“My sister went to you for help,” Len said. He spoke slowly, carefully outlining the point that Barry had somehow seemed to miss. “That means you _help_. And then you _move on._ You don't drag her back to get hurt again. We clear on that?”

“Yep! We’re good!” Barry squawked a little but he was at least quiet about it. “It was just an idea.”

“A bad one,” Len replied. But he let go of Barry’s shirt. He still knelt in his space, not to scare but because they were quiet. Family talk didn’t leave the cell. “You do whatever your lawyer says you have to. Get out of here. But you leave my family out of it.”

“That’s the problem, man. Your family dragged me into it. We don't know how-”

Len still stared at him in the darkened cell. “Then figure it out.”

“How? Give me something.”

“I won't testify,” said Len. “So don't ask again.”

Barry rolled his eyes and pulled his knees up, blocking his cellmate out of his space again. It was enough to shove him back, but Len stayed down for a moment, balancing himself with an easy lean on Barry’s shin to stay close enough to be intimidating.

“You’re enjoying this, aren't you?” Barry asked. “Sure, I get it, you won't flip on family. But you want me stuck in here, the same as you.”

Len’s expression tensed again. “Nope. You complicate things.”

“That’s hilarious, a real riot,” said Barry, not really feeling amused. “Like how?”

“Like I gave my word to help you in here. Otherwise I’d be gone by next week,” replied Len. He shrugged it off despite Barry’s apparent surprise. “I told you, you don't need to be dead yet. And this place would eat you alive without help.”

Barry frowned at him. “No it wouldn't.”

“Really?” Len arched an eyebrow, barely visible in the shadows. He shifted enough to point at the sheet hanging from the bars. “Tell me what that means in here and maybe I’ll believe you.”

“Means- it means something? It's a _sheet_.”

Len smirked at him. “It means the _occupants_ don't wish to be _disturbed_. Or, if this is easier for you, if the bunk’s rockin’, don't come knockin’,” he drawled.

“Oh crap!” Barry went wide eyed and scrabbled to collect the sheet down again. Len stayed out of his way, backed up onto his part of the bunk again.

“Don't quit your night-job, Scarlet,” he advised. Barry disappeared up onto the upper bunk after that, his cheeks practically glowing pink in the dark. The young man’s pride was still intact in prison, and he wasn’t a raging jerk about it, which made him as a rare as a unicorn. He hadn’t said a word when the CO’s had taken his clothes, taken his shoes, checked him for contraband, even ordered him to share sleeping space with a convict, but the simple misunderstanding of a sheet to hide behind had sent him running.

Safe from sight in his bunk, Len slumped back against the wall and tried not to think about it. It was not yet four am and he was awake now, too aware of a suddenly glaring problem in his plans to rest without a solution.

 

\-------

 

That morning, Barry kept quiet. No more pestering Len to fix his court case, no more big-eyed stares at the crazy world behind bars. It was a comparatively jaded Barry that waited in the line up with Len for breakfast. He didn’t ask questions, just observed the environment, and Len didn’t have to tell him when or where to go. Barry fell into step beside Len without wasting time. The kid had caught on. Len climbed up halfway to the top of the bleachers with his book and Barry chose the bench one below, all on his own. Closer to the ground, probably, rather than because he chose to sit below Len in the social hierarchy he wasn’t yet fully aware of. Len held court over exactly one other human in the cellblock in the meantime and it made him smile just a little.

Until Silver showed up. The wiry con said his hellos to check in with Len, a surprising courtesy from the new guy, before he tossed a basketball at Barry’s head. “You play, cop?”

Barry caught it, tossed it back. “For real? You know, does it matter at all that I’m a CSI?”

“A what?” Silver shot the ball back at him. Barry relented and moved out toward the faded court. Len kept an eye on them over the edge of his book. The pair got on well and were soon playing basketball one-on-one like normal humans, regardless of the prison surrounding them. Len was almost jealous, but at the same time, basketball was never his sport.

Within a few minutes, they had gathered a small crowd and a few extra players. Silver had picked up six guys on his team as they played, Barry only three other outcasts who didn't mind losing. Len supervised from the bleachers, a book in his hand, as Barry got to do something that was almost normal for once. He shoved, shoulder-checked, dodged, and crashed to the ground on his ass a couple of times. Everyone wanted their chance at him, but Barry kept it about the game.

And then Barry stole the ball from Silver and dribbled it a few steps, shoving him aside to take a shot. Silver crashed hard as the ball swept into the hoop; Barry hadn't been paying attention to his speed when he had surprised the con he played against, had used a little too much force behind the push to his chest. He was winded when Barry checked up on him, but he took the offer to help him back to his feet.

“Sorry, man... You okay?” Barry’s concern was met with a nod and stubborn look of neutrality. Then suddenly Barry was knocked off his feet by someone a little bigger. It was clear retaliation, he didn't have the ball, and he was shoved away from Silver. Barry went sprawling and had to pick himself up. From the bleachers, Len stopped reading his book to monitor the game again. Barry looked around at the players all watching his reaction, waiting for the fight. He held his hands out, shrugged it off.

“Are we still playing? Or what?”

The crowd grumbled and let him back in the game. Barry could handle himself alright when he remembered to read the room first.

It didn’t go well when the guards called for the end of yard time and Barry’s team was up by three points. There were no trophies for the effort, just a surprisingly good game for all the bruises Barry had probably collected. And a lot of hard feelings about it. Len left the bleachers to wait for Barry and Silver to walk back inside. The game had been fun but some of the noise Len heard did not bode well for Barry.

They weren’t quite to the doors of the cellblock when someone behind them shoved forward and kicked Barry in the back of the leg and he folded like a deck of cards as his knee gave out. Barry Allen, super speedster, had an Achilles’ heel and someone had found it. In a crowd of people, he hit the ground as the crowd still moved around him to line up.

Len, however, saw TenK shoving ahead of them into the cellblock. That coward’s game wasn’t going to fly with Len. He left Barry to sort himself out and went after the con who had tried to shove in on his territory instead. Len caught TenK by the shoulders of his jacket, pulled him back even as he delivered a sharp downward kick to the man’s leg, a harsh repayment for what he had done to Barry. TenK staggered and only kept his balance because Len kept him upright. It brought them to a close quarters fight as people crowded through the doors, and TenK got in a punch. It didn’t have enough force to do more than sting a little. Len shoved him to the ground when one of the guards started to get involved. He caught sight of Silver helping Barry limp to the stairs and moved to take over.

“What happened-” Barry asked but Len ignored it. He had a line of red over his eye but didn't acknowledge the cut when Barry asked about it. He looked to Silver instead.

“Get to your line up! I’ve got him,” he promised. Silver looked momentarily scared and couldn't get rid of Barry fast enough. Len had to make himself take a breath, to mentally back off after the fight, and tried to herd Barry toward their cell. He kept Barry ahead of him in line as it narrowed down from two-by-two to single file at the stairs, even helped him up the stairs. Barry’s leg was back to normal about the time he hit the cell gate.

“What’d you do to your eye?” Barry asked once they were closed up inside their cell. “You were fine on the bleachers.”

“I saw what happened to your leg,” Len replied. “I had to be sure it didn't happen again.”

Barry sat on his bunk, shocked stupid for a moment. “You- _what_?” he asked. “Who did it?”

“Doesn't matter. Next time, notice who comes at you. It's an important _life skill,_ ” said Len. Barry stared down at him, confused.

“That's nice and all, but doesn't it matter who it was if I’m supposed to fight my own battles? If I don't know who to look for-”

Len crossed his arms on the bunk, speaking quiet so Barry would follow his example. “I took care of this one. It's settled.”

“What, I get a freebie?”

“No, Barry,” Len said, rolling his eyes. “I said I would look out for you here. You have my protection. There's a small window for retaliation. You were down, I moved.”

Barry frowned at him for the effort. “Okay, wait-”

“Nope.”

Barry dropped down from the bunk and Len stared at him over his elbow, arms still crossed on the bunk.

“Someone tried to take you down, I informed them not to do it again. There is nothing hard to understand. Simple.”

“Except it's _not_ ,” Barry insisted. “Because I’m me and you're you and we're _here_. And you just sent a big message to _everyone_ here not to touch me. And the thing yesterday with your dad- that kind of stuff has consequences, last I knew.”

So Barry could definitely catch on to the way things worked. Len took a breath, set his jaw, and tried again to coldly defend his case. “It does. If anyone messes with you, they get me. Cause and effect.”

“For real? You are not getting it,” said Barry. He pointed at the gate. “I can't hang a sheet without it meaning something here. What the hell’s it mean when you start fighting my battles.”

“It means you can't fight for yourself,” said Len. “Which you can't, Barry. Not without _Scarlet_ jumping in and saving you. You can't even play basketball without cheating. Metas get sent to M-ward, no questions asked. So you _can't_ fight here.”

Barry knew as well as he did what Len had done and now the man got to see the consequences of their deal days earlier. Now everyone out there, prisoners and guards alike, thought he was some fragile pet that had to be protected. It implied, in the yard, that he was property. And to the point, he was _Len’s_ property. He had to rely on Len. Len had just sent that signal out to everyone, loud and clear. From the look on his face, Barry didn't know what to do with it, another mess of his own making.

“Thanks, I guess,” he said, apparently deciding to take Len’s decision at face value. He waved between them. “I can fight, though. I can figure it out.”

“It's easier this way,” Len replied. He allowed himself a breath as they avoided a potential fight, even let it go to his head a little that he had so easily won. “Trust me.”

Barry tilted his head, seeing his slight grin. “You know you are, like, one of the least trustworthy people in this entire place, right?”

“And yet you do... You’re _welcome_.” The grin broadened into a smile and Len clapped a hand to Barry’s shoulder, a subtle mockery of congratulations. Then he pulled his book out of his pocket and dropped down onto his bed to read, the matter settled. Barry glared at the ceiling before jumping onto the upper bunk. The world outside their cell was noise that crept in again, men whistling off tune at different songs, people talking, people calling across at each other, people banging noises against the bars of their cells. Life went on as it was supposed to, exactly as planned. If Barry didn't question his call in defending him, no one else would either.

“By the way,” Len called up. “After that game, you stink. Might want to take care of that before it takes over in here.”

Barry didn't seem to appreciate the reminder. “I’ll take care of it tonight.”

 

\------


	8. Chapter 8

The snag with Barry’s intimate friendship with the walls that made up Iron Heights was that Len was left to scowl at the empty space after he left. It was dark but he could clearly see that his cellmate’s bed was completely unoccupied. He had his own space, which was admittedly rare and valuable in prison, but he had nothing to do in it except read a book that he’d already read twice in four days. Thankfully Barry had come back that morning with a deck of cards as part of his efforts at buying Len’s testimony. They had played blackjack until lights out when Barry left, so Len knew where to find the deck. He scrambled out of bed and hunted up the cards.

Shuffling cards by himself was something to do that wasn’t thinking. Counting the cards out by suit was something to do that wasn’t thinking. Scrambling the cards and arranging them by number took up space on the empty bed and gave him something else to focus on. Shuffling them back out of recognizable order was something he could do without thought. He could keep his hands busy. But he was still just moving cards around, no matter what he did, and it took a lot of work not to end up right back in his head. Worrying about keeping Barry out on the streets. Worrying about keeping Lewis and the other inmates from jumping a man who couldn't fight back. It was a big prison, Len had seen too many of the corners that men could get dragged into when other inmates wanted to send a message.

Len worried, too, about what the hell had gotten into his head that shielding Barry from reality had gotten to be so important. The kid was younger than him, but he wasn’t actually a _kid_. He could take care of himself if he had to. It would risk the Flash, but Barry could defend himself just fine. He could handle the murderers and rapists in prison just as well as any other man that had to deal with them. It wasn’t Len’s responsibility to keep him away from them. Some stupid agreement to be _allies_ didn’t absolve Barry from the duty of taking care of himself.

But if Len got angry at a shithead perv for kicking Barry in the back of the leg, he didn’t want to know what would happen if one of the actually dangerous men surprised them and cornered Barry somewhere less public. Prison was made up of walls and big talkers, but Len had already in four days heard more about what those men wanted to do to Barry’s ass and other parts than he could reasonably handle.

On the heels of that was the inexplicable concern that he didn’t know what trouble Barry found outside the walls of the prison. He could run into trouble as the Flash that was no different than the worst that Iron Heights had to offer. Nobody from out there would send Len a memo about it and he would end up waiting in isolation for the Department of Corrections to figure out how Len’s cellmate had just walked through the wall and _disappeared_... that would likely lead to serving more time, and Len hadn’t yet managed to break out of isolation.

It was somehow _more_ concerning still that the possibility of serving his full time in isolation didn’t make Len as mad as it made him worry about _Barry_.

What the hell had he done? Len never let anyone get to him. And then there was stupid Barry Allen, with his innocent, rose-colored outlook on damn near everything that bordered on delusion. It was naivete, it was ignorance, it was weakness, and it was exactly what had Len hooked. Somehow, those weaknesses were important to him. They were the things he had lost when he was a boy maybe, things he missed as an adult, things he envied. And he wanted to protect what Barry had left of it.

Len tossed the cards to the bed and stood up. He knit his fingers behind his head and paced in front of the bunk, angry. He didn’t deal with any of the other emotions very well. He knew their names, knew what they felt like, and knew to avoid them. He knew what this was. Anger he at least knew how to handle. It unfortunately didn’t solve things in this instance. If anything, it made it worse. He stopped at the gate and looked out, fists wrapped tight around the bars.

Across the hall between cells, down on the first floor and closer to the light from the multilevel guard’s room, his worthless father peeked out between the bars of his own cage. Len dropped away from the gate to hide in the shadows a little further. It wasn’t likely Lewis could see him from that angle, the lighting in the cellblock after lights out was just enough to spread darkness, not actually to be useful for anything, but Len had to be sure. There was another level to his problem with Barry, the part where protecting Barry meant defying his father. He hadn’t even managed to do that successfully when Lewis went after Lisa. _Barry_ wasn’t going to help him on it. It wouldn’t be enough.

Len paced back to the back of the cell, stopped at the farthest edge of the bunk. It changed his perspective a little, removed him further from the distraction of his father. Safe in the dark, he set his arms on the mattress and settled his chin in an elbow to think.

It was an incredibly bad move; Barry’s basketball game left a recognizable scent to the man’s pillow just inches from Len’s nose.

“Goddamnit, Barry,” Len muttered. He sat down on the edge of his own bunk and stared at the wall, tried again to focus. He had to narrow it down. There was one important operation in front of him, and that was to get Barry to his next court appointment safely. Lewis Snart wanted Barry _dead_ , so Len would keep him _alive_. That was the prize on this heist. All the rest was noise. He just had to outsmart the entire yard, and maybe Barry himself to do it, to make sure the kid didn’t get killed before a judge could declare him free to go.

Cons weren’t really Len’s area of expertise, they were just a trick of survival Len had grown into as a kid with small hands that made him a good thief for an asshole for a father. He knew he had to control the image, control what people saw. He had to make sure everyone around Barry saw what they wanted to see. And he knew that most of the men in the yard wanted to see Barry lose. Badly.

It was an impossible to task, to make sure Barry came out on top while everyone else saw him bleed. That gave Len the focus he needed. If there was anything Len was good at, it was the impossible things he wasn't supposed to be able to do. And for awhile, at least long enough to find sleep, the impossible was just enough to keep him from thinking about Barry.

 

\------


	9. Chapter 9

Rain made the sounds in the cellblock echo somehow more than usual. Everyone got restless. Len woke up when Barry returned to the cell. He thought about saying something, but he didn't want to risk it. They had said all they had to say, they were allies, that was all Barry cared about. It was all either of them had time for. So Len pretended to be asleep, listened as Barry climbed up to the bed above. He wasn't sure which of them fell asleep first.

When the bulls raised the racket for roll call, Barry was quick to get going. He zipped into line ahead of Len, apparently mindful of attack, and once they had their breakfasts, he shoveled it down. He was on alert and paying attention. Len almost felt bad for him for that; listening to the inmates around them was probably the fastest way to paranoia for someone like Barry. He came from a world where he had a life, where there were cases to solve, newspapers to read, little family and friend dramas to talk to people about; he was used to healthy and constructive human interaction.

In prison, mainly, men talked about crime. It was like a sickness, like a health-defect they all shared and had to talk about, had to one-up and compete with. Who did what crime, how did they do it, how much time would they serve for it, what did they want to do next. Someone lurking near the line caught Barry looking vaguely in their direction and sneered at him.

“C’mere, Cherry. Lemme shake your tree,” they called out. It was accompanied by the predictable thrust of the hips and the dark laughter of his friends. Barry’s attention went quickly to his plate and Len felt the man’s knee start bouncing off nervous energy. There was nothing Len could do about it, short of start a fight, and he had to pick those very carefully now. So he pretended not to notice. He heard Barry’s breathing get quicker, though, could practically feel the paranoia just sitting next to him.

Len couldn't blame him for it, either. Based on the noise that had surrounded them the last few days, Barry was the new guy, he was one of the fish, he was Snart’s bitch, he was roadkill, he was a squealing pig, he was the snitch with the pretty mouth; he was labeled with a dozen other names besides. Each one was used to put him in his place, whether overheard or tossed at his face. It wasn't exactly a pleasant background static as he did something so normal as try to eat his breakfast.

“There’s nothing saying we gotta go back out to the yard, right?” Barry asked as Len finished up his own breakfast. Len shrugged, shook his head.

“It’s raining, I wasn't planning on it. Don't want to get my library book wet,” he said. He arched an eyebrow at Barry. “You can if you want to...”

Barry shook his head, started pocketing extra food for the morning. “Nope. I’m good.”

Not much else was said as Barry followed Len back to their cell. Silver checked in with them on their way by, just to make sure everything was cool after the drama from after lunch the day before. Carper poked his head over the railing to make sure Len was on top of things. Neither of them had anything newsworthy so there wasn't much visiting after breakfast.

Inside their cell, Barry paused to fix the end of his mattress because it looked like some smartass had messed with the corner. Per Len’s suggestion, or just common sense there was no way to know, but Barry kept it tucked in with tight hospital corners for that very reason. He needed to know if someone shoved something in his spaces; all it took was one piece of contraband and a surprise cell check to get him in more trouble than he already was.

Len waited for him for a moment, then got what passed for annoyed for him lately and sighed. He caught Barry’s hip to keep him still and edged along behind him to get into the cell. Then he climbed into the lower bunk. He also got a good whiff of just Barry, no kitchen smells or other inmates around to confuse it. Good god, the boy was lucky he hadn't been lynched smelling like he did, clean and earthy and like a twenty-dollar bottle of something from a department store.

“If you’re going to shower at home, you might want to drop the cologne,” Len advised.

“You told me I was stinking the place up,” replied Barry.

“Let me see the bottle then,” said Len. He offered up a smug grin from the lower bunk but it took a lot of effort. “It smells, it exists. It's gotta be in here somewhere, right? Is it glass?”

Barry rolled his eyes as he finished his personal bedcheck. “Okay. Got it.”

“It doesn't save you from the court of public opinion around this place to hide at home, either,” Len pointed out. “You’ve got a big target on your back in case you missed the memo-”

Barry nodded. “Oh no, I caught that one.”

“- and people notice where you do and don't go. They’re still gonna talk.”

Barry crouched down, leaned back against the wall in front of Len’s bunk. He waved between them.

“I don't like their talk,” he said. “Apparently, according to everyone out there, I’m your bitch. That's what it means when you protect someone.”

And there it was. The pride flared up past the logic from the day before. Len shrugged. “So do I treat you like my _bitch_? Do you want me to?”

“No.”

“Then what's your problem?” he asked. Len could shrug it off, but Barry couldn't. It bothered him. He was stubborn. It didn't help Len’s life any.

“I don't want to owe you something when I can defend myself-”

Len cut him off, knocking down that notion before it got a chance to grow. “I'm the one with a name that means something here. You're the cop. If you try to pull authority on this side of the fences, you’ll get _killed_.”

Still quiet, Barry pointed out into the world beyond their cell. “I'm gonna get killed because half of them want to _steal_ what's _yours_. The other half because I'm a cop.”

“They won't steal what's mine,” said Len. It was a matter of fact as much as his personal determination. Barry nodded.

“I'm not actually yours,” he said.

“That's _your_ problem,” Len replied. He pointed out to the lineup quad. “To them, you are, and if you're as smart as you seem to be, you’ll leave it that way.”

“So, what, this is part of the protection service? Pretending I’m yours to lecture about prison hygiene is how you keep me safe?”

“Nope, I told you I’d give you rundown on how the place works. This is how,” Len replied.

“Then what are the rules here? With you, with this benevolent protection racket you’re running? What am I supposed to do on my end?” Barry asked. Len set his book down, carefully held surprise on his expression. He didn't want that question. No part of him wanted to answer that question. It was complicated and convoluted and he was going to lie his ass off rather than answer it.

“You’re gonna have to explain that one,” he said, stalling.

“I mean, since when do you do something for nothing?” Barry replied. “What do you want out of it?”

“World peace. Next question.” Len smiled broadly, faintly amused at himself for the cheap dodge.

“Not what I meant.”

“Then say what you mean,” returned Len. Still smug. Still playing the bastard to keep the truth at bay.

“What do you want from me from this? This helping, these pro-tips, all the sticking your neck out in defense of the dirty cop,” said Barry.

“The question is, what do you want to give?” asked Len. Negotiations were open. And Barry didn't know how to answer it, either. There was a lot of real estate to cover between hero and villain cooperation lines. Len wasn't going to hang himself on it, but he would let Barry go first.

Here, men either talked about sex, their conquests, their girls at home, or they dreamed out loud, in their sleep or while awake, noisy as hell inside cells that were little echo chambers for sound. And the sound of squeaking mattresses was very loud to cover up the sound of the men on them sometimes. Day or night didn't matter. It was life here. It was something Len, Captain Cold of all people, was actively shielding him from the worst of and he would never on Barry’s life admit that out loud. So it got down to Barry, what he wanted to offer. What was acceptable currency for the do-gooder Flash, in prison, aside from sex, cigarettes, and future favors?

The longer Barry struggled with the moral and ethical responsibilities of being the human hero who held the key and heart of Central City, the more amused Len allowed himself to get. It would keep Barry up at night worrying now too. Fair was fair.

“Okay, stop. Before you hurt yourself, amusing as that would be,” said Len. “You want to keep your ledger clean and tidy in here, then just don't fuck up. That's it. If the net gain is we both stay alive, fine. It means you don't provoke the natives. I tell you how things are done, you do them _that way._ Then we know that any problems someone has with you are theirs. Not on you.”

Barry still looked paranoid, waiting for the catch. “So what I've _been_ doing.”

“Mostly.”

“What have I-”

“For starters, you don't listen. You've been here nearly four days. Haven't stepped foot in the showers. I don't want to deal with the... _questions_ that raises, among the local population,” said Len.

“The place doesn't smell like a locker room,” Barry pointed out. “I took a shower...”

Len rolled his eyes. “Look at it this way, Barry. This place is a self-contained _social scene_. Like high school, only more _violent_. An elite club. Members are _expected_ to make an appearance at the club’s various amenities, because that's what people do. When folks _avoid_ the _amenities_ , it stands out. _When in Rome_ , and all that.”

“The showers are not a membership perk to prison, Len.”

“That's a lot of judgement from a guy who tried to _drown_ himself in the _Old Spice_ this morning,” returned Len. Barry frowned and conceded the point with quiet. “You don't show up at the showers, you don't look and smell like a walking _pigpen_ , people start to ask _why_. And I don't like those questions.”

“Questions lead to assumptions,” Barry said, nodding. “Not just about me but about you. Because of the company we supposedly keep and the hanged sheet.”

“But this is _not_ about me. You _live_ here now. I've seen you take a _crap_. I’m not... trying to get you naked or something. You can do that in here, I don’t _care_. It's everybody else, the guards, everybody, that's the problem. There’s expectations.” Len was frustrated having to spell out the most basic daily living requirements to Barry. _Yes_ , he was an adult, he could take care of himself, but that wasn't the actual point.

“It _is_ about you,” Barry argued. “Because you’re my protector here. And as my protector, there are certain things that you’re supposed to be on top of.”

The gloating smile came back. “Yeah. Like _you_. And nobody wants that stench around. So they _want_ you to make your appearances.”

It was unfair, watching Barry turn that adorable shade of red and not be able to appreciate it. Frustrated, Len tried again.

“Look. Don't you think somebody’s going to look into why you _don't_ stink, when all of them _do_?” Len said. “ _Stop looking_ for an angle on it, Barry. _Logic_. Use it.”

Barry reluctantly nodded. “So no taking shortcuts.”

It was all about the experience, the once in a lifetime opportunity to see how the other half lived. That included walking naked into places that were not monitored by guards where he would be subject to attack. Just to maintain appearances.

Len agreed. “No shortcuts.”

 

\------

 

And that was how, later that afternoon, Barry’s guided tour of Iron Heights expanded to include the showers. He was jumpy about it, crowded Len’s space again on the walk down the hall and made his life somehow _more_ miserable. With how Barry behaved, anyone would have thought Len was leading him to an execution.

“Have people really been killed in the showers here? Or is that just, like, a myth?” Barry asked as he shrugged out of his shirt, shoved it on the shelf next to where Len had left his neatly folded version. Len didn't dignify the question with a response, just grabbed his towel to lead the tour into the next room. Stripped down and towel clad like the rest of the cattle led to slaughter, Barry scrunched his nose and followed.

The showers weren't exactly monitored, just a big doorway with no doors so the guard behind the glass in the locker room could see if someone staged a riot or something. That meant that in that room, Len had to pay attention to the door. Security was on him and him alone because Barry was apparently afraid of being _murdered_ in the prison showers. The kid was so naive it caused Len physical pain.

Despite it being a technically public space, Barry was like a long tailed cat in an old folks’ home full of rocking chairs. He couldn't figure out the safest place to be in a room seemingly designed to ensure a painful death. So he went to the small wall in the center of the room, just to make sure everyone saw his ass when they walked in the room.

_Goddamnit, Barry._

Given how paranoid Barry was, Len kept to the opposite side of the wall. It put Barry’s back to the door and kept Len plenty distracted trying not to stare nor act like he was standing guard. Coddling Barry was going to kill him but Len wasn't good at quitting once he had set his mind to something.

Barry didn't even bother to keep track of the door out to the monitored room, didn't pay attention to the flow of traffic as men came in or left. Either because of his life experiences or because he was expecting trouble, maybe both, Len did pay attention to the doorway. When guys showed up, started setting up at the showers along the wall behind Barry, Len hurried to shut off the water at his faucet. It was a hint to Barry that the man didn't catch.

“Let's go,” he said. He even reached over and shut down the shower on Barry’s side before he left. Barry grudgingly and distractedly responded by collecting his soaps and reaching for his towel. For someone with superhuman speed, he was very slow about it. Len surprised him with a full-handed smack across the ass as he walked by him to the changing room again.

“Hey. Move it.”

It flustered Barry, he nearly dropped his little bottle of shampoo, and he struggled to wrap his towel at his waist all at once. Nice to know it worked to get him moving.

All the same, Barry’s face was still red when he rushed to collect his clothes from the shelf beside Len’s. Shoulder to shoulder, Barry could hardly look at him. Len had to try very hard not to smile and he didn't mind when he failed at that.

 

\------------


	10. Chapter 10

Back at the cell, Barry’s cheeks were back to his usual pale, but his hair was still wet, and he was still... flustered. He followed Len inside, set his stuff on his bed, and lurked as Len saw to his own business. Len stalled on dealing with the trouble he had inadvertently started. One overplayed move and Barry wasn't going to let it go. There was a thrill for it, it was fun, but Len hadn't seen it coming. He had underestimated Barry’s tolerance or his pride, either one, and now had to figure out how to reclaim the peace.

“What the hell, man! For real?” Barry wanted to know. He managed to keep it to a whisper though.

“What?” Len asked over his shoulder. He arranged soap on the small shelf at the back wall before moving toward his usual spot on the lower bunk. Barry blocked his path. He waved vaguely toward the general direction of the showers. And then, eye to eye with Len, he apparently forgot how to use words.

“The... the... _smacking_. And the bossing.”

Len rolled his eyes and moved again to get past him. “We _just_ had this conversation an hour ago.”

“Yeah, and you didn't listen,” Barry replied. He still mirrored Len so he had to turn again to face him, rather than climb under the bunk. It helped them keep their voices quieter, which helped his image in general if they weren't caught bickering in their cell.

“Actually, you didn't,” Len poked carefully at Barry’s chest. “I told you-”

With a quick nod, Barry interrupted. “I'm tired of being _told_.”

“Get used to it.”

Len put as much into the order as he could, far too aware that he was attempting to bully someone younger, stronger, and far faster than him. There was the slightest hesitation to it; despite his best effort, his brow creased and the expression on his face was concern, not arrogant, gloating anger. Len knew Barry didn't have to get used to anything, too. He was gambling on the situation around them, on the prison, keeping Barry from retaliation for treating him like a peon. Len knew, outside the walls and without the cold gun, the balance of power was a lot different.

That split second of concern was just enough for Barry to pick up on. The kid was fast. He _saw_ things faster than he had any right to. And it seemed to piss him off. He caught Len by the front of the shirt and shoved into him, pinning him to the wall. It didn't take a lot of effort, and Len didn't raise his hands in defense. He had put Barry in a corner, manipulated and angled him around when the man was already dealing with prison. Len had to back off somehow or the guy would just go over the edge.

Len raised his hands and caught Barry at the hip, but he didn't fight. It was a peace offering. Barry could fight if he wanted, Len just wanted to back off if he had to, given there wasn't much room to move when up against a wall. He could still give Barry a free shot if he needed it.

They both held their breath, like they were each surprised at the move because it was welcomed. It was an invitation. And Len watched him, licked his lips, tried really hard to ignore the little part of his brain that worried itself with the existence of Barry Allen. He just had to work some aggression out, things would be fine on the other side-

And then Barry touched his face, dragged fingers over his jaw to catch the back of his head, and Len realized Barry was working through a _very different kind_ of frustration. _It took him goddamn long enough._ Len thought he was losing his mind misreading hints half the time, and then four days in, well, that was _definitely_ Barry’s lips on his and they were _not_ shy. Len let his hands slide up and tugged him in closer to encourage whatever had prompted Barry’s surprise attack. Cornering Barry apparently worked to Len’s benefit and that was a mental note he locked away in the archives very quickly for _frequent_ access.

Len decided that maybe Barry tripped over his words but his tongue worked fine. They argued silently until they were out of breath. The cell bars buzzed, rattled and clanked shut to lock them in as per schedule, startling the both of them out of their focus on each other. Then they just stood in each other's space, breathing, each waiting for some betrayal of the moment. Barry caved first. He tapped his hand against Len’s chest.

“Did we just do that?” he asked. Len nodded, leaned back against the wall again to watch Barry. He was grinning about it and he didn't care.

“That is definitely something we did,” he said. He still felt a wave of relief when Barry smiled back at him.

“Just checking. Sometimes I drop into other realities and it gets weird.” Barry scrunched his nose up, his usual level of awkward forcing to the front of his sparkling personality.

“You are really _good_ at weird, Barry,” Len agreed. He could work with weird for awhile at least. He kept hold of the sides of Barry’s pants, made fists to pin him a little closer. The wall held more of their weight than they did. Barry looked out past the bars to see if they were being watched like that, but Len tried to drag his attention back by nipping at his jaw. If they had permission to touch now, that was something that had been bugging Len for days and he would not miss the window of opportunity he was presented.

“I've heard that a few times, actually,” Barry managed.

“Well, they were right.” Len said the words between kissing his way along Barry’s neck to try bringing him back from worrying about life outside their cell. It finally worked and Barry looked at him, leaned against him against the wall. Since they were fresh from the showers, Len had a t-shirt on, no extra layers yet. Barry stood between his legs, arms to his chest, soaking up natural heat.

“You’re not actually cold.”

“Don't let that one get around,” said Len, lips against his skin. Barry ducked the curious tasting and claimed another kiss instead.

 

\----

 

The rest of the rainy afternoon was the best kind of adventure, exploring the physical side of a prison-formed alliance. Len actually dragged Barry into the highly guarded, off-limits territory of the lower bunk for a while, just making sure Barry knew his way around. Barry wasn't left to fidget or do push-ups to try to spend energy leftovers from lunch, and he didn't surprise Len with any metal-triggered electric sparks.

Doing time passed a lot more quickly that afternoon. They broke it up to go to dinner, behaved themselves enough to pass off as normal for anyone who hadn't been snooping on their cell. Getting too close wasn't good for appearances, and Barry seemed to have caught that without having to be told, so he didn't try. He learned quick enough; Len figured Barry would do okay if he had to be stuck there longer just because the kid could adapt. It would just maybe break things Len didn't want to see broken.

They went out to the yard after eating, Barry sitting at the bleachers as Len made his rounds among the hoods and contacts. So freshly reminded that prison life wasn't his normal life, Barry added some distance to go make some calls. Len guessed it was to check in with his lawyer, though they had joked about starting around the gossip columns that Flash and Captain Cold had gotten well beyond cozy that afternoon. And Barry’s foster-sister was a journalist. Len squinted at the payphones but chose to trust Barry on that one, just this once.

He tried to focus on the business that had to be done while Barry wasn't around, brokering a simple trade of services for projects with deadlines not too far in the distant future. Silver knew someone who had a cousin whose brother’s boss’ wife’s sister’s brother-in-law had access to a technology company that needed some tech liberated in exchange for an insurance claim to fully fund it. Len was interested. Silver was bragging. There were no guarantees the lead would pay off, but if it did, Len now knew who to talk to on the inside. He just had to get _outside_ first.

Barry wandered back to the bleachers then where Len waited for him with Silver and a few of the safer crooks Silver had been running his mouth at.

“What was that?” Len asked, nodding toward the phones. He reached out and caught Barry’s jacket sleeve, steered him to the bench in front of him.

“Lawyer,” said Barry. He straddled the bench and didn't mind when Len put his feet up on it just behind him. He looked over at Len, amused somehow. “I’m still screwed thanks to whatever your dad and you told Johnson. But maybe we can fake it.”

Len shrugged it off and looked away, the picture of indifference. The subject of Barry’s case was still off-limits. He stayed quiet as Silver dragged Barry into an argument he was having with one of his crew.

“Hey, the fish knows science! He can answer it, shut up!” Silver ordered. The other three turned to listen. Len arched an eyebrow, wondering how he had gotten from bragging about hooking them up with a gig to arguing about science.

“So, Barry. Say you got a... a problem with somebody. And you solve it. And then you've just got a body, so it's a different problem...”

Barry’s smile faded. “I don't know how to get rid of bodies, Silver...”

“Nah, No, man, it's cool. This is just science,” he promised. Trying not to laugh, Len doubted it.

“What we wanna know,” one of the other guys said, “Is if you can just dump a body at a pig farm. Will they really just eat up all the evidence?”

“Oh my god,” muttered Barry. Len shoved at his back with a knee, a playful shove of encouragement as much as a mockery of it. And he happily left Barry to figure out how to _science_ his way out of advising a pack of criminals how to dispose of a body. It was ridiculously close to fun for Len. Considering he sat on a bench in a high security prison yard, surrounded by cons and murderers, Len was almost _happy_. It was dangerous.

 

\-----

 

That night was quiet again. More rain had chased them inside and the doors closed as Len settled back into the reading he had skipped all afternoon. Barry disappeared up on his bunk and seemed to have finally gotten some sleep. Len wondered if he would sleep through the night or if he would keep his regular appointment with the Central City criminal element. He was careful not to wake him.

The clanking, heavy sound of the lights in the cells all losing power at lights-out eventually woke Barry up from his doze. He waited for the walk through count like usual, saw the guard wander by his cell and the cells across the building. When it was safe, he dropped down from his bunk and sat on the edge of Len’s.

Len had a new book and he was stretched out, reading in the light from the center of the block outside the bars. Barry interrupted by leaning back to rest on his elbow against his back, a polite sprawl in his space as he waited for attention. Len set his book aside and rolled to his side, depriving Barry of the armrest but rolling toward him rather than away. He squinted over his shoulder at him.

“What?” he asked. Barry reached up to loop his fingers in the bars supporting the mattress over his head rather than pull at Len. He licked his lips and had to find his voice. He wanted something.

“I want you to go with me. But you can't. So I think I'm stalling,” he admitted. Len’s judgmental expression actually softened a little, the smug twist of his lips faded.

“Don't get attached, Barry,” he said. “You’re only here five more days.”

Barry nodded. That and a few other reasons. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Len shoved at Barry’s leg tucked up behind him. “So go save our city already.”

Given their diametrically opposite positions on the matter of whether or not Central City should be any kind of saved, the light order surprised Barry. He stalled out, hanging from the bunk frame like a stuck monkey. He squinted, tilted his head, tried to shake words loose to understand what Len was telling him. “...did you-”

Len rolled his eyes and shoved at him again. “I told you, you're important,” he said, voice impossibly quieter because he would never even admit to saying the words as he was saying them. “You can help people, it's what you're good at. So go do it.”

Barry stared at him, surprise complete. “That... did not help the whole stalling thing.”

Amused, Len sat up, rearranging Barry’s leg to be sure there was room for the both of them in the small space. Barry still hung on to the mattress frame because he was afraid if he got as hands-on as Len was, he wouldn't be able to talk himself into leaving any time soon. Len took advantage and pulled on Barry’s shirt collar to drag him into a kiss. And as he tried to argue with Barry’s tongue, he tucked cold hands under the hem of Barry’s shirt up against skin.

It was ridiculously effective at changing Barry’s mind about looking after Central City that night. He pried his fingers out from the bunk so that he could touch back. He pulled Len toward him, as much into each other’s laps as they could get. The lazy drowsiness of the night disappeared under the excitement as Len kissed and stroked and pressed against him.

And then... Len pulled back. A quick kiss tugged at Barry’s jaw before he wasn't there again. Len planted his hands at Barry’s hips, shoved his thigh against Barry’s knee, and pushed him off the lower bunk.

“Go away.” He grinned as he said it. He knew exactly what he had done because he meant to do it. And then he settled down on his stomach with the book again, putting Barry on ignore to be sure he caught the hint. Len was going to be uncomfortable for the effort, but he figured he could work that out for himself once Barry left. The Flash was going to have a lot of fun with that skin-tight red suit for the night, though. It was a dirty trick in every sense and Len loved that he got away with it.

Despite the sudden discomfort of the let-down, Barry seemed amused by the tactic. It was kind of a Leonard Snart Signature move to leave him high and dry. Or at least knocked on his ass, on the floor, trying to figure out when the rules changed. Len reasoned that he really should have seen it coming. Barry got to his feet and apparently decided to take the excuse to go see to his city.

Not above revenge, though, he snagged Len’s book from his hands before he left. It went with him, so Captain Cold would at least miss something about him while he was gone. Len didn't give two seconds’ thought to the missing book, though. His attention was on the fact that Barry had stolen it, that he would play back in a language that Len knew so well. He was corruptible and willing and still _Barry_. Len had to bury his face in his pillow to keep himself quiet in the few minutes after Barry left. It was the worst revenge Barry could have gone for because Len wanted him back already.

 

\-----


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *note the tags for tw in this chapter, folks*
> 
> _______

There was, at one time, a point in Leonard Snart’s life that he had friends, _plural_. He couldn’t really remember much about those kids from elementary school. Back in the days when he could choose who he hung out with at recess because they liked the same things, like Saturday morning cartoons on TV and toys their parents couldn’t afford to buy them.

Len remembered the appeal of friends went downhill for him when he had friends who wanted a specific toy, a giant Star Wars AT-AT that was large enough to hold all the figures, because his friends of course had all of them. It was a collection race. The other kids in school had the set. It was all they talked about around Christmas time. They came back from Christmas break bragging about it under their Christmas trees.

Nine-year-old Len had stolen his own Christmas present that year, and he took it to school to show it off. The best he could walk out with was a small He-Man with the bright colored Battle Cat. They fit in his pocket and he had them with him whenever he was bored in class. His teacher took them away when one of his “friends” told her that he had stolen them, and Len couldn’t sit down for days after the woman reported her scandalous discovery to his step-mom, who then told Lewis. He stole the Battle Cat back before spring break just to spite her and they stayed in his backpack for a few years, went everywhere with him from foster home to foster home, even waited for him after his first stint in juvenile hall. Len eventually gave the Battle Cat away to a piece of human trash he had thought for awhile was his friend.

With the exception of Mick Rory, his friends didn’t stick around. The stuff he stole did, until he chose to get rid of it. And that stupid Battle Cat crept into Len’s dreams that night and just screwed up his ability to sleep, so even when he got rid of things they sometimes didn’t go away.

Trying to get out of his head after the dreams, Len crawled out of bed and checked Barry’s bed. He knew Barry wasn’t there but he checked anyway. The sheet was still wadded up under the blanket. No Barry. No distraction. Just his own company. Apparently, his brain wanted to dig up all the old stuff while he was alone, in the dark, with nothing better to do. Len narrowed his eyes at the wall like somehow it was the fault of the aging paint. Resigned to the inevitable, he dropped back down to his bed. At least nobody was around to witness the pain that sometimes dragged up. He grabbed the deck of cards from their spot tucked up under Barry’s mattress in the springs. He kept his hands busy, shuffling cards, and tried to think of the next project on the books for him on the outside. He had places he wanted to hit, after all, might as well review the list.

Unfortunately, the Jack of Spades had other ideas. It kept showing up in the shuffle. Len must have shoved it to the back of the deck four times before it finally got to him. Just like the Battle Cat. He stared at it, let the thoughts eating at his brain finally shove to the front.

Jack had been a friend when Len was younger. He was a thief, about ten years older than Len, somebody who had partnered up with Lewis. The only reason Jack ever actually came around was because of Lewis. They worked together, they planned their break ins together. Jack usually kept look-out while Lewis went in. Sometimes Lewis took Len in with him only because he said he didn’t trust Jack not to screw the operation. But when it came to selling the haul, Jack turned a higher profit for them on almost every job, so Lewis kept him around.

Len didn’t know about profits at twelve years old, he just knew Jack paid attention to him, asked around for him, even showed up when Lewis was in prison and Len was dumped in some foster home with his baby sister. Jack always brought toys for Lisa, too. He never really interacted with her, just brought Len stuff to give to her. For years, until Len was about eighteen, Jack was the most consistent adult presence in their lives aside from his asshole father. It was Jack who taught Len how to read schematics, how to reprogram a key card, and even how to play poker. He put a lot of effort into Len.

But Jack was still a bastard, cut from the same stock as Lewis Snart. Maybe worse because at least Lewis never lied about why he kept Len around. Len always knew what he had to do to be a good son: he had to follow directions, stay quick, run fast, never get caught in a lie, and never snitch on anybody that Lewis didn’t tell him to roll on. It was shitty to be his dad’s underaged, unpaid slave labor, but at least his dad was family.

Jack was just a stupid kid his dad brought in to make money off of. Which meant that he expected Len to stay useful to Jack, too. As long as Jack never left a bruise, it was no concern of Lewis’ what the young man got up to with his son. By the time Jack stopped asking Len for permission, Lewis figured the problem was Len acting up as a rebellious teenager in between juvie stints. It was Len’s fault then.

For a kid, that was a double-edged sword. Len started dancing a line between breaking all the rules, acting like a grown up, running with the big dogs, at the age of twelve, which meant that, quite often, he found himself in over his head and trying to keep up with things he had no way to possibly understand. With someone like Jack, pretending to be a friend, but treating Len like a kid, a lover, or a slave with no clear definitions between them, it skewed how Len saw people growing up.

The firebug Mick Rory was the healthiest friendship Len had ever had in his life, and he knew more than enough about human psychology to know that was pretty fucked up. Mick and Jack never got along and their arguments and constant fights were why Lewis still didn’t like Mick. It didn’t matter that Jack had been dead for twenty years, Lewis blamed Mick instead of Len, because it was more convenient to him and he just didn’t care.

Somehow, despite the extensive rap sheet that Barry had gotten rid of for him, Len never got looked at for Jack’s death. That was something else Jack had taught Len, how to kill a man and get away with it. Nobody missed Lewis Snart’s old partner, not even Lewis. But he tended to show up on Len like a poltergeist who turned on lights, opened doors, or played with playing cards when no one else was around. Usually Jack showed up whenever Len took an interest in another human for anything resembling trust, just to fuck with Len’s head some more. He was dead and gone, but he visited for kicks. He had never visited while Len was in prison before. That was a new one.

Len folded up the cards and put them back in their box, deciding he needed to get away from Jack for awhile before he moved into the prison cell with him. The cards were slipped back between the bedframe and the mattress above him. Every movement was carefully contained, Len keeping a tight hold on his thoughts by controlling his movements. He sat up and scooted to the edge of his bed, leaned elbows on his knees and his head to his hands. He felt like he was going to be sick and needed to hold that at bay.

The first kick of pain behind his eyes confirmed the migraine he had been afraid would follow. Too much tension, too much internal conflict, it always happened. Len flinched as the memories triggered.

He could still see Jack as he was - about the same age as Barry - that last day. It had been a few months since Jack had come around before that, he was keeping his distance because the heat was on Lewis. But he had a new pitch for his old partner, had a new gig. And there was a kid with him, a few years younger than Len was at the time, maybe sixteen. She had a bruise on her arm and messed up makeup, but she was quick witted, sharp eyed. Pretty, too. She reminded Len a little of Lisa. And she flinched when Jack touched her. Len still hadn’t outgrown that habit himself.

Len had a fake ID that said he was old enough to drink and some cash so he talked Jack into the bar at the end of the street. It didn’t take work since Jack knew he’d get tail one way or another. Lewis had a night job because he was on probation, and the people who paid him were his next target anyway, so he was busy and out of the way. Since the girl didn’t have any ID at all, she stayed with Lisa that night at the mess of a warehouse that was Len’s base of operations and the closest thing he had to an apartment.

Jack got drunk and bossy, but he didn’t make a scene at the bar. They bought a bottle off the bartender and Len got him to the piers. Out by the fishing boats. Where it stunk like dead fish every day. The old piers by the market were dark and Jack had dragged him out there plenty of times before. Old halogen lamps buzzed. Shadows were just black holes that soaked up memories. And Len didn’t let Jack touch him that last time on the pier, just put the whiskey bottle in the man’s mouth and pulled the trigger. He sat there in shock afterward, in the dark at the end of the pier, their legs over the water, the waves still on a moonless night. There was no blood, no mess, everything out on the wood docks that were already wet from water and fish guts and alcohol.

Len was sober when he left the wharf and walked to the liquor store. He bought himself vodka and bourbon with the last of the cash from Jack’s wallet. When he got back to the apartment with the girls, Lisa’s new friend asked where Jack was. Len lied without the slightest tell and helped himself to the bourbon out of the bottle. Somehow she knew. But she never snitched.

No questions asked, Mick showed up the next morning to kick Len’s ass for getting drunk without him and his friend helped him survive the worst hangover. They did a smash-and-grab for Lewis later but it wouldn’t have worked without Mick’s babysitting him. That was one of those first lessons for Len on what friends actually were. Len didn’t have anybody else who would show up like that. He had to pay for every other relationship in his life, one way or another.

And now there was Barry. Somehow. Just for now.

So far, Barry had been the one to pay for him. Len hadn’t done him any favors from the start, but he missed him now. Len hugged his knees, pressed his face into his arms to try to keep the pressure in his skull from cracking it open. He caught himself wishing Barry was around then, tried to see things through those rose colored glasses permanently attached to the kid’s face, made himself take a breath and try to kickstart a reboot. It was enough to get him to his feet, then to the sink to wash his face, still carefully breathing the whole time. He leaned against the wall between the sink and the bunks, arms crossed tight across his chest. He felt alone and cold.

But, he reminded himself, Barry would be back in a few hours. Surprise set in and Len looked to his watch, checking to see how long Barry had been gone. He would be back soon. That was the Scarlet light at the end of the tunnel and, for now, it was brighter than a ghost. Len breathed into his hands, ignoring the slight tremble, focused on getting warm. He washed his face again before going back to the bunk. Rather than crawl into the hole that was his lower bed, though, he climbed up to Barry’s. It was a risk but he didn’t plan on falling asleep there. He just needed a change in perspective for a while, to see his world from the different angle. He slouched against the wall, kept a wary ear tuned to the movement of the guards, made sure he kept breathing and focused on being back to normal before Barry got back.

When he felt like he could attempt to sleep again, Len jumped down to the ground and rearranged the blankets to look like there was someone sleeping under them. And he stole Barry’s pillow. Technically he was only borrowing it. He curled up around the pillow and worried about Barry making it back before count as a way of keeping the ghosts back, a pillow as a shield, just for a little while.

\-----


	12. Chapter 12

The rest of the morning disappeared to dreamless sleep, which was what Len had hoped for. He slept maybe an hour and, when he gave up, he made sure to put the pillow back where it belonged. Then, as the clock ticked on closer to four am, Len stood up to pace. It was something to do to stay awake. Not long later, he stopped and leaned his shoulder into the bunk, not much better than asleep on his feet. Still, it worked. When Barry phased through the wall, he found Len waiting for him, arms crossed.

“Book,” Len ordered. He might have had a shitty night but he didn’t have to let the kid know about it. And he wasn’t going to let Barry get used to stealing from him, either. There were ground rules that had to be established. Barry grinned at him, completely impervious to the narrow-eyed glare.

“Come on, you can do better than that,” he taunted. Len saw the game and met it. The glare faded as he eased forward and started a hands-on search for the book with a greeting kiss as a buy-off. He found the book folded up in Barry’s back pocket. The book was tossed on his bed, then Len helped himself to the pocket again and backed Barry into the wall. Barry grinned into every kiss, something Len couldn’t help but feel to draw in like light. Barry had been back for nearly two minutes before Len slowed down enough to smell the burger and fries stashed in a pillow case. When he did, his face turned from Barry to stare instead at the carefully wrapped pillowcase held suspiciously behind Len’s back.

“And what is that?” he drawled out. Barry was still pinned to the wall so he just held it up, out of easy reach behind Len’s a little higher.

“Breakfast?”

Len eased out of his space and dropped down into the bunk. He didn't let Barry get far away though, catching him by a front pocket and dragging him into the lower bunk with him. They sat facing each other as they ate, the smell of the burgers and curly fries taking over the cell. When it was gone, the smell lingered. It crept out into the middle of the cellblock and started waking people up early. An hour before breakfast. As the noise level in the block inched up a little higher than usual, Len couldn’t help but notice that Barry was all smiles about the trickery. First the book theft, now, of his own volition and design, the torment of a few hundred convicts who hadn’t seen or smelled a real hamburger in months if not years.

“You aren't such an angel, then,” Len realized. He could have very easily admitted to something like pride in that moment. Barry just shrugged it off.

“Nobody’s perfect. We've all just got stuff we're good at,” he pointed out. Like innocent pranks in between sleepless nights spent saving his precious city. With the food well out of their way, Len leaned over and caught Barry by the hips, tugging him closer to climb between his legs and kiss him down into _his_ pillow. It was a move that killed two birds with one stone: Len wanted to steal Barry’s attention for a few hours, and he wouldn’t complain about his pillow smelling more like Barry and his fancy shampoo.

 

\------

 

Thanks to Barry’s considerate prank of burgers for breakfast, there wasn’t much reason to actually go to the cafeteria that morning. Len had a warm bed for once, Barry tucked up behind him, and he didn’t want to move. But they had to make it to count. _Rules_. Len hated rules. So he let Barry push him out of the bunk and helped sort out whose pants had ended up where. It was a small cell, there were only two of them in it, but Len stalled just to keep Barry in boxers for an extra minute. He climbed into his t-shirt and sweatshirt reluctantly just in time to follow the man back out to the yellow line in front of their cell for count.

For the sake of appearances, because Len recognized Officer Ortega at the doors outside the guard house at count, they opted for dealing with the crowd at the mess hall. Len grabbed something to drink and an apple, watched a sleepy Barry stuff his pockets with more food for later. They sat at the table with Silver like usual after. Barry straddled the bench at the table and slumped a bit on his elbow. He slipped up once, rested his forehead to Len’s shoulder, and for actual seconds Len had to debate with himself if their current reputation status could take the hit of a public cuddle. Silver arched an eyebrow at them about the time Barry woke himself up with a start and sat up again.

It wasn’t raining, though, so they went out to the yard after breakfast. It wasn’t for long, Len just wanted to track down Carper to see if he had heard anything on the yard about the troubles Len knew were brewing. That left Barry on the second bench of the bleachers and Len sitting above him until he spotted the men he needed to talk to wherever they showed up. He saw one of Carper’s usuals wandering toward the weight benches near the building.

“Back in a minute,” he said to Barry as he stood up. The man looked up briefly to nod but still looked a little blurry eyed. Len was a little better and knew he would have to keep an eye on Barry from across the yard. He was going to have to eventually let him sleep or they would be in a world of hurt sooner than later. Barry was pushing his luck, or putting a lot of faith in Len. He fought the urge to ruffle Barry’s messed up hair as he jumped from bench to bench to hit the yard. He hadn’t gotten more than ten feet from the bleachers when he heard his father’s voice.

“Hello, _Barry Allen._ ”

The extra distance caused a problem when Lewis approached, by himself, while Len was on the other end of the benches. It hit something almost like a panic for Len because his dad snuck up on Barry instead of approach him. Barry was fine, kept his distance over an arms length away, and kept Lewis in sight. Len jumped up to the bleachers and ran across to stand behind Barry, look down at his father. His dad waved him down.

“Let’s chat,” he invited. Things seemed like maybe they might be peacefully intended, which in Len’s experience meant there was a reckoning coming. Len glanced at Barry, making sure he was still where he had left him sitting earlier, despite already having a hand on his shoulder. Then he walked to the end of the bleachers and dropped down to stand in front of his dad. He was aware of Barry fidgeting on the bench just out of reach.

“Uh... I should go...” Barry tried.

“Yes,” said Lewis, even as Len said “Nope.” He caught at Barry’s ankle as added assurance, so Barry stayed put. Len was glad to have the tangible proof that Barry was okay but he could feel the weight of his father’s glare and pulled his hand back to safer territory.

“I want an answer, Leo. What is this? No more sass and backtalk. What is your angle on this pain in the ass-”

Len cut him off before his father could work himself up into another angry fit. He pointed at Barry, his hand still hidden where it rested on the bench. “No angle, pops. That right there is mine. I don't want him broken or dead. So you can't have him.”

“He screwed the operation,” said Lewis. Len shrugged at it.

“Yeah, _and_? He's gonna serve time for it too. Straight-laced kid like him, he’s stuck in here? That's worse than anything you could do. So just... leave him. To me.”

Like a shot out of nowhere, Lewis open-palm slapped Len across the face. Barry jumped, expecting a fight, but Len didn't do anything. They stood close enough to each other that the attack went unnoticed by everyone except Barry. Len stared at the ground, a full grown man afraid to look up at his angry father. There was a lot more involved in the simple action than just facing the old man’s anger. The fact that Lewis was still alive meant that Len had failed something that had been actually important. He had been given one chance to take his father out and he couldn’t do it then with the gun for help. Len didn’t have the gun now. And he had an entire lifetime of experience reminding him that his father somehow always won every fight. It was Lewis’ version of demanding respect due family.

“Don't give me orders, son. Now I want that boy’s head on a spike, and I expect you to deliver,” said Lewis. Barry still sat on the bench three feet away, there was no way he hadn't heard it. He kept his head down because Len looked down, but he still looked to Len, for some clue as to which way the man would go. Len worked his jaw, trying to find the words to talk his way out of his father’s influence. He was Barry’s only backup in Iron Heights. He had to keep his word on that, which meant he didn’t have the luxury of being intimidated into agreement on this one. There was no bomb threat, nothing was out of Len’s easy control so far, he just had to keep reminding himself of that. He shook his head and managed to look up at his father.

“I won't. He’s a _cop_ , Lewis! You want a riot over this, fine, start one. Pick a fight with the bulls. Get your own hands bloody so you can wage a war against a _kid_. Make an accident out of it,” said Len. His defense was a new idea, a solution as a bargaining chip, and it was almost preprogrammed. It was something Len had been thinking about for awhile and it was an idea that would work, if his father would listen and put it into action. “But. _I_ _won't_. I am asking you to leave him to me. Let me handle him while we’re in here.”

“Why?” Lewis demanded. Len’s expression hardened, defensive. That wasn’t something he had to answer, not any kind of a reason he owed his father. He reverted to the line that had already made the rounds among the crass populous of the yard.

“He's something to do,” returned Len. “While he’s here, he’s mine. That’s all.”

“He's getting out?”

“Maybe in a few days,” Len said.

“Then stay out of my way,” said Lewis. Len straightened up.

“No. Alright? You went after my baby sister and I didn't screw with your operation, so stop screwing with mine now. This stupid cop is nothing to you, so just step off.”

There was a pause as Lewis found a new angle. “You need him for something?”

Len nodded, angry. “I just _told_ you I did.”

“Alive?”

“Yes, damnit!” Len pounded a fist on the bench not far from Barry’s foot. Lewis considered the both of them.

“Fine,” he said finally. “If you _can't_ keep him safe, it's on you. He's _your problem._ ”

“Thank you,” muttered Len. He tried not to cringe as Lewis clapped a hand to his shoulder and then his face. It was rough and it stung, a reminder that had always been around; his father had brought him into the world and was just waiting for the excuse to take him out of it. There was a dismissal to it as much as a benevolent forgiveness. It burned at Len’s pride, shame and anger threatening below the well-trained surface. He just tried to flatten out a frown and waited for his father to leave. Only when Lewis had crossed the yard without his minions magically climbing out of their holes in the ground did Len risk looking away. He turned his attention to where Barry still sat on the bleachers. Barry looked understandably angry and Len had to work hard to keep the neutral mask in place. Since Barry seemed to be waiting on him, Len waved him down from the bench.

“Sorry,” he said, quiet as Barry jumped down. Barry ignored it.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.” Len nodded. It was a lie and Barry saw through it. He shoved at Len, surprising the man enough to make him drop out of whatever funk Lewis had put him in.

“You’re _not_ okay. Don’t lie right now, man. I will kick your ass later and you know I can,” Barry said. He hung on to the front of Len’s shirt, meeting his glare because it meant he had the man’s attention. The fight came back as he riled Len to anger. It was probably what Len needed then, but it felt harsh, felt like an attack he didn’t deserve.

“I’m not lying,” Len spat back at him. “That’s why I kept you there. You know what I know.”

Barry nodded. “What? That you’re gonna serve me up when you’re done having _fun_?”

That was a fair concern and Len couldn’t really blame him, but he was equal parts scared and disappointed that Barry hadn’t seen through the con he had pulled on Lewis. Sometimes it seemed like Barry saw through everything else, Len had thought that one would be obvious. Not sure how else to control the paranoia he knew had to be steering Barry now, Len pushed back in an entirely different direction. He threw a gut punch to surprise the kid, trying to derail the track entirely. He tangled his arms with Barry’s and pushed, dropping him forward to get behind him. Then, hands locked around Barry’s wrists to hold Barry’s arms crossed, Len moved up behind him. He held on, the two standing between the bleachers in what could have looked like a hug to anyone looking on. Len kept Barry tucked close, his knee bent into the back of Barry’s thigh as a threat. If Barry was worried Len would play dirty, he had no problems showing the man what that would look like just to make him pay attention.

“Don’t push me, Baer,” Len whispered in his ear. “We’re on the same side as long as you want to be. Tell me when you’re done and I’m gone.”

“We’re _not done,_ ” said Barry, his voice rough. “But I don't want my head on a spike, either. And if he's gonna push you around, you’re gonna lie to me when he's got you cornered, what am I supposed to do?”

Len’s hold shifted. He let go of Barry’s wrists to wrap his arms around and hold him instead. Len turned his face to the back of Barry’s neck, a simple kiss pressed behind his jaw as he held them still. Barry caught the end of the bleachers for support, swaying a little like he was dizzy. It was a good reminder that neither of them had slept much that morning.

“Just trust me. _Please_. I’ll handle it,” Len said, his voice muffled by Barry’s jacket collar. He didn’t say please very often and mean it, but this time he did. Barry dropped his head back to look up at the clouds. He let Len take a little of the weight he was asking to support. They were so screwed.

“Okay,” Barry eventually said. “But if I get shish kebabbed, Cisco _destroys_ the cold gun.”

It was all Len could do not to laugh. He stayed silent, arms snug around Barry’s ribs. “I can make another one.”

“Liar,” returned Barry. Len did laugh that time, a huff of air that probably went straight down Barry’s spine. Barry loosened Len’s hold enough to turn around. That was an unfair play and Len didn’t let him go but he found other places to look instead of at Barry’s justifiably still angry expression.

“We should go in,” Barry suggested. Len shook his head and eased back.

“I’m not running to go hide,” he said on a sneer. His pride had already taken a hit that morning, so the last thing he wanted to do was tuck his tail and hide from his stupid father. He could focus on the work, get his head back in the game where it needed to be. He needed some distance to do that. Barry was too close. “I’ve got some business to see to. Make sure I have the numbers I’m gonna need.”

“Numbers for what?” asked Barry. “How?”

“Not answering that,” said Len. His lips quirked up into a shadow of the smug grin as he let go of Barry. He caught his chin in a light hold, just a touch, dragged his thumb over Barry’s lower lip. “Cop.”

Barry rolled his eyes. “Fine. What am I supposed to do then?”

“Stay out of trouble,” said Len with a shrug. “I won’t be far. But he’s not going to back off, so just... don’t be stupid.”

It was a tall order and he knew it, but Len figured they had a small window before Lewis moved on Barry again. He had just promised that he would, had just declared there were no sides in their little family war: it was Snart against Allen, and Lewis didn’t see his son on the battlefield in his fiction, only nameless pawns. That was something Len could work to his advantage if he moved quickly. Which meant he had to walk away and leave Barry to stand on his own for just a little while so he could take inventory of the pieces he still had on the board.

 

\-----

 

On his way across the yard, Len rubbed at his face to try to keep the inevitable hand-print from forming on his skin. He was too pale, it would stand out even if it didn’t bruise. He lucked out when he got to Carper; the man and his friend were near the gym, which meant Roscoe and Jocco were nearby. Len acknowledged Carper’s friend with a nod but otherwise invited himself into their conversation and brought it to an unceremonious end.

“What have you heard?” Len asked Carper. “He’s planning something.”

“Your buddy’s funeral maybe,” replied Carper. “Everything I’m hearing tells me you could make one helluva profit off that cop’s ass if you wanted. You’re lucky your old man’s not into business.”

Len rolled his eyes, not exactly in a position to say the man was wrong. He split his attention between Carper and his friend, someone Len knew by sight only and wasn’t sure could be trusted. “So does that mean you’re out?” he asked. “Or can I count on you?”

“Hey...” Carper seemed offended. “I said I’d back you. But man, if you leave that kid here when you leave, and Lewis doesn’t get his hands on him, I mean it, he’s gonna make somebody money.”

“Don’t push me right now, Carper,” Len warned. “Lewis has got like five guys dogging him. I need to meet that to keep them off just a few more days.”

“So you need babysitters?” Carper asked. Len nodded.

“Just until I can figure out how to get Lewis to back off,” he said. Carper shook his head, looking mildly annoyed. He looked out at the yard, frowned at the back fences. He kicked the ground and swore.

“Are you paying?” asked Carper’s friend. Len squinted at him, judging if the question was legit or not.

“If I have to,” he finally said. Carper perked up a little. Len nodded at him. “He’ll tell you I’m good for it.”

The two exchanged a look, Carper eventually nodding. His friend shrugged and nodded. He was in. Carper had to think it over. By then Roscoe had gotten tired of snooping from afar and the big man walked around the corner behind Carper.

“Paying what?” he asked.

“Babysitters,” said Len. He waved to Carper. “As he keeps _reminding_ me, my cellie’s got the attention of half the block and I don’t feel like _sharing_.”

“Half the block, _plus_ Lewis,” Carper returned, defensive. Roscoe quirked an eyebrow up to his dark cornrows. Carper smacked Len in the shoulder then and pointed his attention to the field by the fences. “Because Lewis has got him. Like, right now, man. You _suck_ at babysitting.”

Refusing to be baited, Len looked to the men with him, waiting for an answer because he wasn’t going to call it wasted time. Carper frowned at him.

“Fine, I’m in. Let’s go,” he grumbled. “But if Lewis comes after me, man...”

Len looked to Roscoe and got a somber nod. That was enough and Len started toward the problem at the fences. Silver had seen the problems brewing and met them on the way. It was a numbers game and Len would take what he could get. Lewis just needed to be shown there wasn’t only one faceless pawn on the board to keep him from Barry. If he thought he had to answer to more than Len, it would change his tactics and maybe Barry could keep his head a little longer.

 

\------

 

As Len and his hastily assembled gang approached, they could see that Barry had been pinned by a pair of meatheads. One had him in a choke-hold and would be impossible to get to, the other was Lewis. Len saw Barry cough and squirm with an awkward, forced slowness, his hand crawling up to block his attacker’s elbow trying to close around his windpipe. That’s when Lewis took advantage of the distraction and punched him in the ribs.

“Pops!” Len called out, not far away but not quite close enough to lay on hands. With the guards nearby already on edge, he had to keep the anger out of his voice and it took a lot of work. “Stop stealing my toys. You’re making the bulls nervous.”

Lewis stepped aside and stared as he saw Len and his friends on approach. Looking much more put together and like his usual self than he had earlier, Len pointed at the guardtower where the guard was still yelling warnings, then he held his hands up to be sure the guards got the hint not to shoot. Lewis looked up at the towers then over to the man that held Barry. Len had four men backing him - one of whom was a big black man who had nothing better to do with his free time than to work out, and two others who were small and scrappy to contrast the sloppy white supremacists Lewis recruited - and he was calling in the rifle-wielding guards just in case those four weren’t enough.

Lewis saw reason and called off his dogs. The man choking Barry let him go as Lewis stepped aside. Barry moved quick to put distance between them and seemed to be headed back for the block. Len waved him over instead.

“Barry! Where you goin’,” he called out. Barry almost ignored it, almost kept walking back toward the relative safety of his cell. But instead he stopped, stared at the sky for a minute, and then trudged back over to Len. He wasn’t limping and was breathing so it looked like, so far, the only thing injured was his pride. He tucked his arm protectively across his chest as Len grabbed him by the shoulder so they could face Lewis.

“I told you, Lewis, you don’t get this one,” Len said. The men stood maybe six feet apart at that point, with Len’s friends scattered not far behind him. Rather than engage with them, Barry tried to shift how he stood so he faced Len more than the man’s father or his cronies, looked back at the prison building or down at the ground rather than try to keep the scowl off his face. Determined that they wouldn’t be seen hiding, Len caught Barry by the back of the neck and had him actually look up at Lewis instead.

“Now just to be nice, Barry, tell the old man you’re sorry,” Len ordered. He wasn’t angry, there was no actual force to it. If anything Len thought it was funny. It was part of the show.

“I didn’t do anything,” Barry muttered. “I’m not apologizing.”

“Try again,” said Len. Barry stalled. Finally, reluctant and probably planning on holding a grudge for it, Barry shrugged and looked over at Lewis again.

“I’m sorry you think _I’m_ the one who fucked up your operation,” he said. He looked to have tried very hard to keep the sass in check. Beside him, Len grinned and thumped him on the back, a show for the guards looking on.

“See? That was easy. All friends now. No more making the bulls get all trigger happy,” said Len. He kept hold of the collar of Barry’s jacket, more to keep him close and steered out of Lewis’ reach than anything else. Without much of a complaint about it, Barry started walking toward the bleachers that Len and his new friends had claimed. The situation was defused before anything blew up, everyone could retreat to their corners safely. So they did. Roscoe, Carper, and Carper’s friend headed off toward the gym again to get away from the guard tower. Silver lurked around the bleachers, keeping watch like a confused guard dog.

“I’m gonna make _you_ apologize later,” Barry grumbled, only barely loud enough for Len to hear him. Len laughed and rubbed his shoulder.

“Somebody needs a nap,” he observed. Barry nodded. Len sat down after Barry did, still monitoring him. “You’re tired. You could sleep.”

Barry shrugged, glanced around the bleachers. “Not here I can't.”

 

\-----

 

The library was Len’s sanctuary. There was hardly ever anyone in the large space, it was quiet, and there was only one working door to get in or out. The other doors were all blocked off by bookshelves and locked from the hall side. It wasn't a monitored area, aside from a couple of lifer trustees who had been assigned daytime shifts to keep track of the books. They had a good collection, all donated, covering a lot of subjects. There were padded armchairs spaced at random, too, not just benches and tables; it was a luxury that looked ideal for napping. It was the only place inside the walls that didn't _look_ like a prison.

On a normal visit to Iron Heights, Len spent a lot of time in the rooms. He had intentionally not shown Barry the place because he didn’t want the competition for the quiet. Now that he had relented to that stubborn streak, Len went right to the section he wanted, pulled a book off the shelf on technological engineering.

After the stunt in the yard with his dad, Barry was acting just a little irritated at Len so he wandered into another room. Len gave him space, since that was the idea behind visiting the library in the first place. He looked around, saw Barry standing in front of one of the low bookshelves in a room nowhere near the main doors, and moved to take a spot at the table that would let him watch for trouble to walk in.

They didn’t have a lot of time left of the hour, but for what time they had, Len could make sure Barry got some peace and quiet.

 

\-------

 

Iron Heights didn’t have the innovation of the average high school with it’s helpful bells to announce the end of the yard time. The inmates went in whenever one of the guards checked his watch and determined it was time. So it went that one of the bulls showed up to check the library to collect the stragglers from the yard.

“Let’s go,” the officer told Len from the library doors. Len looked up from his book and then over through the hole in the wall that lead to one of the other library rooms. The officer noticed. “What?”

“One minute, boss,” Len said, quiet. He closed the book and left it on the table, stood to go look after Barry. The first room’s beat up old chairs were empty, no Barry hiding behind any of the shelves that stuck out into the room. Len snuck through the next doorway, to the next converted office space, and again found no sprawled out sleeping speedster. What he found instead was a couple of bookshelves stuck out into the room on either side of a door they used to block off. The door was slightly open and Len could see the bright hallway beyond it. The rush of anger and fear hit him and Len slipped out into the hall, forgetting about the officer waiting for him at the other end of the library.

He heard a muffled shout from nearby and sprinted toward it. The laundry room looked like the likeliest source and Len shoved the doors open, hoping he could catch someone’s face with the metal if he hit them hard enough. Instead the doors were unguarded, the problems Len had been trying to avoid standing in a close group some ten feet away from them. Lewis knelt in front of the rough inmates and Len seriously doubted he was lining them up for blowjobs. Len’s sudden presence startled them. Lewis was the only one who didn’t look at him.

“Lewis!” Len shouted at him. Barry lie in a heap at the men’s feet. He hung onto a broken pipe but the rest of him seemed to collapse into the cement. “Back off!”

“You can't keep him, Leo,” Lewis warned. “He put you back in this place. That's on _him_. I told you. He doesn't get to enjoy it.”

Moving around his delusional father, Len shoved the goons back and moved to check on Barry. He was already swearing under his breath as he crouched beside him. He glared over at his father, seeing Lewis had a hold on Barry’s arm like it was a shield to keep his son away. Len recognized the threat and stayed on his own side. Barry _flinched_ when Len set careful hands on him, snapping something in Len’s view of the world just then. His father was a dead man walking and it was time to start letting him know it.

“You have _five seconds_ to leave,” Len warned. He could get rather scary when he was angry. Lewis met the anger without flinching, expression completely dead, cold. Then he moved to catch Barry’s attention back, all but ignoring Len. He poked at Barry’s wrist he still held, dragged blood away from an already healing cut.

“This could be more fun than killing you. Since that didn't stick. Huh,” he said. Lewis looked down at Len as he rose to his full height. “Learn something new every day.”

Len stared up at his father, keeping an eye on all of them in the room. He was outnumbered and unarmed so he knew better than to attack. But he knew yard time was up, and he knew there would be a guard looking for him.

“HELP!” Len shouted out, full volume, full _anger_. “GUARD! Somebody!”

Lewis and the others took the hint that their five seconds were up. They left the room at a fair speed, Len shouting after them, “Medic! Help!”

“Okay, could you _not_ , with the noise?” Barry’s voice was gone, more a grunt than anything that worked. Len tried to help him sit up.

“You look like hell...”

Barry snorted. “Thanks for the help?”

Len ignored the sarcasm and started getting Barry up on his feet again. “I told you not to wander off. I don't have anyone in there. I didn’t even fucking hear-”

He wasn’t sure if Barry even heard him. He looked shaky, pale under the dirty face. He seemed focused on the problem of not losing his lunch when gravity hit as Len helped him up. He tried talking again, his voice a little better this time, just quiet. “Lewis knows I’ll heal.”

Len was distracted checking Barry over, arms, ribs, neck, just careful prodding to verify suspicion. “Your arm looks broken, Barry...”

Barry nodded. “It _won't_ in five minutes.”

It sunk in what Barry was telling him then, That was easily the worst news they could have gotten. There was no way Lewis would stay quiet, no way he would leave Barry alone after that. “Shit.”

Len ducked under Barry’s unbroken arm, very careful, and started helping him limp toward the door. They met the guards at the hall but Len insisted on helping Barry to the infirmary himself. They needed to stall but he didn’t know how long it would take, he just knew he needed to give Barry a little more time to heal before a doctor could get a hold of him. Len even multitasked as they moved, wiping at his face with his sweatshirt sleeves to get some of the watered-down, muddy blood off Barry’s skin. If they both looked like hell, maybe the guards would believe it when Len tried to convince them the blood was his, because Len didn’t need the infirmary. Barry... needed a place to rest and heal but Len didn’t know the safest place for that if the infirmary would get him locked up as a meta.

A couple of officers crowded them in the halls but Len insisted he could help Barry, he didn’t need their help. They escorted him toward the infirmary rather than toward the block, one of them on the radio updating their commander of the situation outside the library. Len tried to go slow, hoping Barry could get back on his feet, but the man was too worn down. He tripped over his own feet and went down, arm still around Len and clinging tight. Len wasn’t exactly surprised but he still had a mild panic trying to protect Barry, to keep his head from bouncing off the concrete again.

“No! I got him!” Len growled at the first officer that tried to make him move faster than he wanted. Very intentionally, very carefully, Len pulled Barry up against him and then tried to get to his feet. He was stalling. The only thing he could think to do.

 

\------

 

The med-staff wouldn’t let Len stay in the infirmary. Maybe he looked a mess, but he had no injuries, so there was no reason to let an inmate avoid his cell. The officer from the library couldn’t verify that Len hadn’t caused the injuries so there was a fifty-fifty shot any belligerence on Len’s part would get him tossed in isolation for kicking his cellmate’s ass.

He still stalled peacefully as long as he could, making sure Barry was breathing as he helped settle him onto a gurney. He lurked at the side of the bed, tried to ask questions to stall, buried the broken arm under Len’s bloody jacket to keep anyone from noticing it until Barry had a chance to heal. Stall, stall, stall. It was surreal watching the nurse try to rouse Barry from the strange dead-sleep. They hooked him up to a heart monitor that beeped like it was supposed to, noise to add to people talking fast and loud around him. Everything around Barry was frantic energy to determine what was wrong, and the man in the center of it looked like he had fallen asleep in a water puddle.

When two officers showed up to pull him back from the bedside, Len went along. He kept his hands up and didn’t try to cause any trouble. They let him walk back to the cellblock on his own steam, didn’t bother to cuff him.

“What happened to him?” the officer asked for the third time. Frustrated, Len replied exactly the same as he had before.

“I don’t know. I went looking for him when you showed up, I just found him like that,” he reported. He had even volunteered to show the officers where he had found Barry. But he refused to admit he had seen the men responsible.

“You know we can add to your time if we find out you were involved, right?” said the guard who had helped Len carry his cellmate to the infirmary. Len rolled his eyes, jabbed a thumb toward the other officer escorting him.

“Yeah, and I know _this guy_ saw me in the library reading a book a minute before I started yelling for help in the hallway,” he said. “So I am verifiably _not_ involved.”

They stopped in front of his cell gate and waited for it to roll open. The guard hung out at the gate, looking around the small space as a visual spot-check for contraband, as Len crashed onto the lower bunk. He was mad, he was itching for a fight, and he had a couple of bulls getting in his face. Perfect. Len pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself not to make things worse by taking it out on nosey guards.

“What?” he asked, forced patience.

“You know withholding information on any investigations that happen is, actually, verifiably, _involved_ , right?”

Cornered, Len tried to remind himself he couldn't punch a corrections officer because Barry would give him the betrayed face when he found out about it.

“Yes. I _know_ ,” he said, very carefully controlled. The officer got done snooping on their space, snuffed like he had a cold, and then left the cell. The door rattled shut and Len sat on the edge of his bunk, waiting to feel safe to move again. He thought seriously about punching the wall, getting his knuckles bloodied up so he had an excuse to go check on Barry at the next meal. But it would just make them look at him for figuring out who jumped their cop-inmate.

Barry would heal up soon. He would wake up. And with no injuries, there would be no investigations, there would be no information for Len to withhold from the investigators. Things would be fine in a few hours. Barry would be back by dinner.

Except he wasn’t.

 

\-----


	13. Chapter 13

There was no report on Barry for the rest of the day. He didn’t make count in the morning, either. Len had to grapple with his pride at breakfast, not sure how much of a hit he would take if he broke down and asked one of the guards what the hell happened. Ultimately he decided not to, thanks to the timely intervention of TenK at the mess hall line.

“So where’s the little missus Cherry?” the thug asked. Len stared at him, expression flat as he looked between TenK’s white face and the pink cheeks of the young man hanging onto his pocket. Despite the excessive padding around the middle that made him seem older and bigger, TenK was younger than Barry probably, too stupid to know what games he played in prison. The skinny, haunted looking face of TenK’s shadow was hardly twenty years old. Len shoved a milk carton on his plate and tried to ignore the obnoxious pair. TenK didn’t appreciate the blow off and smacked Len’s tray to the floor.

“I axed you a question, yo,” he said. Len thought about sending TenK to the infirmary to find out for himself, but the kid clinging to his pocket would have a worse time of the visit than TenK would. Still, Len had a low tolerance for bullshit that morning. He snatched TenK’s mostly empty tray from the man’s hands and brought it down over his head hard enough to snap it in two. TenK went down in a heap, his own little missus Cherry standing, startled, over him like he was afraid to move without being told. Len handed the boy the half of the tray he still held, then he crouched at TenK’s shoulder to get his attention. The kid looked up at him, dazed and unfocused, too surprised to _know_ what to do. Len tapped his face to be sure he was listening.

“I don’t have a Cherry on my pocket, TenK. You do. Because you can’t get it up any other way. And the rest of us are tired of hearing about it,” he informed the arrogant thug. While TenK spluttered at the added insult, Len punched him across the jaw, a quick jab to bounce his head off the floor. Then he picked up the fallen milk carton and stood up. TenK’s pocket shadow looked terrified. Len just shook his head and left the crowded line. He wasn’t hungry anyway. The crowd gathered around TenK mostly mocked the young smartass on the ground and they gave Len his space, letting him leave the cafeteria without hassle. Nobody would defend TenK anyway.

“Still got Lew’s temper after all,” came the smug taunt of a man who lurked by the doors. Len looked up, anger flashing. It was one of the men Lewis had hired on to help him with Barry. Len made a fist, still in a mood to fight, but he didn’t take the bait. He didn’t want to know if his father had changed his policy overnight on letting other people beat his kids. And where there was one of the minions, there would be more. Len shoved past him without a word. The man tolerated the push and didn’t follow him, so Len figured there was still a hit out on anyone who took a swing at him.

He made it back to his cell without any further trouble at all. His mind worked over plenty of troubles, but he didn’t get in any fights. He sat on the lower bunk, thinking, waiting, wishing he knew how to handle things differently. His knuckles stung from the connection with TenK. His conscience still smarted from the stranger pointing out he was just like Lewis.

It was stewing in that worried mental state that kept him still in the cell. He was alert enough and noticed when suddenly someone darkened the open gate. Someone that, from their shadowed presence against the lit up morning looked a lot like Barry. Len stood up from the lower bunk, surprised as Barry walked in.

“Hey,” Len said. Barry offered a shadow of a smile, distracted like Len had been it seemed. He moved to the bunks and started digging under his mattress for where he had stashed his extra set of garb. Len tried to stay out of his way, sliding over to put his back to the gate, keeping himself between the prison and Barry.

“Don't worry, Len. Sit down. I’m fine,” said Barry.

“Wasn't worried,” said Len. “You heal.”

At the reminder, Barry nodded and dropped the subject. He found his clothes and turned to leave. Len still stood between him and the gate.

“I gotta hurry...” said Barry as a hint. Len tilted his head, caught on. He backed up then, waved Barry out ahead of him, and walked with him to the showers. Thanks to breakfast, the place was empty. They stripped down and hit the showers, Barry picking a different spot this time, in the corner, so he could see the door before anyone who entered could see him. He had learned. Or he just wasn’t distracted worrying about Len this time, there was no way to know. Len resumed his protective duties and took the shower between Barry and the door. But he left Barry alone, let him do his own thing, no steering or bossing. While Len was there for appearances, stood under the showers just to place himself as a human shield, Barry washed off the day-old crust from the fight on the laundry floors. Len left him to it. But when Barry glanced over at him, stared just long enough that it seemed intentional, he pulled his attention just that easy.

“Hey,” Barry said, quiet. He tilted his head in a brief invitation. That was all it took. Len was in his space and careful about it. He did a visual check, saw nothing like even a faded bruise on the chilled skin under the water. He caught Barry’s hand and traced fingers up over what had been a broken arm the day before. It amazed him, a marvel that he was thankful for. Barry didn’t even move like he was in pain, just wrapped his arms around to pull Len in. It hit him harder than Len could have expected.

“I didn’t know about the doors in that room. I thought you could get some sleep in the library,” he said, right at Barry’s ear as he held him around the shoulders. “It's quieter there, the chairs...”

Barry sounded okay about it already. “Well. I caught up on plenty of sleep in the infirmary. So you weren't entirely wrong about that.”

“Ha.” There wasn't any amusement to it. Len cinched his arms tighter as the water worked between them, tucked a kiss to his jaw. He had failed Barry the same way he had failed Lisa, couldn’t keep them safe from one monster of a human being. Maybe they didn’t blame Len, but he did. And he would do better.

 

\-----

 

After the shower, Barry wanted to get breakfast before the cafeteria shut down. Len didn’t tell him about the problem earlier, just kept a wary eye on the other inmates as they made their way to the cafeteria. People were surprisingly quiet seeing Len at Barry’s shoulder. Barry kept his head down, hidden under a hoodie, and he snuck more food out in his pockets than he bothered to eat at the tables. None of Lewis’ minions showed up, and TenK was long gone. On the way back to their cell, Carper snagged Len aside so Barry was able to get himself up the stairs without finding any other trouble. Len kept his guard up.

“Saw you at breakfast earlier,” Carper said. He nodded toward the stairs where Barry had disappeared. “The kid seems okay. We thought maybe he died.”  
Len shrugged it off. “I’m tired of TenK’s business messing with mine.”

“Right,” said Carper. He left that subject alone. “One of Lewis’ men approached Roscoe. You know it’s bad when one of the Clan tries to reach out to the Jamaicans. They wanna make a bigger mess of it. Wanted to be sure Roscoe and his boys weren’t gonna turn it into a race thing.”

Len rolled his eyes to glare at the ceiling. “What’d he tell them then?”

Carper grinned, smug. “To fuck up a rope and light it on fire.”

Finally some good news. Len smiled. “Mick would be so proud.”

Armed with a little extra warning, Len returned to the cell in better spirits. He didn’t know what Lewis was up to, but if he was trying to keep the peace between the cellblock’s various cultural elements, it was going to be messy. This was why Lewis was never very successful working on his own. Len didn’t share the news with Barry though. It wasn’t something Barry knew anything about, he hadn’t been there long enough, there was nothing he could do but worry about it. So Len tossed him the deck of cards and tried to keep his attention elsewhere that morning. For most of the day, Barry sat with his back to the bars on Len’s bed. They argued idly over a hand of _Go Fish_ , because what the hell else better did they have to do? Neither one of them were going near the library again for a while.

Barry jumped when the bars behind his head cracked and rattled from the smack of a baton. He looked over his shoulder to see his guard-friend, Officer Ortega. “Allen. You’ve got visitors.”

“Who?” Barry asked. He tugged the hood back over his head and stood up. Len watched him like a hawk until the gate of their cell rumbled open. He wasn’t wild about letting Barry leave, too concerned something would happen and he wouldn’t know about it, even with officers escorting him.

“It’s your lawyers,” said the guard. Len was carefully neutral on that; the case was still a very big sore spot for the both of them. There was no way Len could argue Barry out of going so he didn’t even try. Barry followed the guard out and Len stood at the gate as it closed. He watched the two disappear down the stairs, noticed that Barry kept his head down and moved carefully slow on his way out of the cellblock. He was faking the pain for an observant audience. There was no way it would last.

 

\------

 

When he got back to the cell, Barry apparently didn’t feel like arguing with Len over cards, so he jumped up to his own space on the top bunk. Len refused to take that personally. There was a moment of quiet after the gate rattled shut, and then Len stood up. He leaned on the edge of the bunk, waited Barry out. Barry kept quiet, stared at the ceiling from his pillow. With a little prodding, tugging at the edge of the hood around his face, Len got him to look over at him finally.

“So. How’d it go?”

“They’re going to throw the book at me for wiping your record. Laurel didn’t sound, like, super hopeful about it,” Barry replied. “But she’s still gonna try.”

The news didn’t sit well and Len set his jaw, trying to hide the flash of anger. It didn’t need to be said that he could fix things with the court. He wasn’t the most reliable of witnesses, maybe, but he could validate Barry’s testimony. But not with Lewis still around and causing hell. It wasn’t in the cards. They would have to find another way around, that was all there was to it. Distracted trying to plan ways around Lewis, Len brushed fingers across Barry’s cheek. It got him smiled at and made things a little better.

 

\-------

 

Something like a workable idea happened that afternoon. Len left Barry alone on the top bunk until dinner but the second Barry’s shoes touched concrete, Len became his _shadow_. Very hands-on with the PDA and not entirely polite about it. He poked and tried to pull a reaction from Barry in public, completely unlike how he behaved when it was just the two of them. Barry was in no mood for it and Len knew it, which was why it worked. Barry shrugged him off as they waited in line and Len just wrapped him up in his arms, put his hands in the front pockets of Barry’s hoodie.

“Trust me,” he whispered in response to the protest. Barry scowled at it but kept his head down, let Len do whatever damage he felt appropriate to their reputations on the yard. Barry’s was already pretty well set in stone with most of the crowd just because he was a cop and his foster-dad was a cop. In light of Laurel’s news that afternoon, there was no telling how long Barry would be stuck there. He was stuck in Iron Heights, he had bigger things to worry about than what others thought of his time there. And since Barry had been put in the infirmary, Len was going to take the credit for it, just to maybe keep the kid off somebody else’s pocket later.

Barry’s only job was to pretend he was losing the hand, and after spending all night in the infirmary, that wasn’t that hard to do. He fought back, didn’t trade the protection of somebody’s pocket like TenK’s cherry robots. All the hard work for it was on Len to make people believe it. After taking the plate to TenK that morning, it was a very fine line to dance.

“What the hell is this,” Silver wanted to know. He seemed somewhat unsettled by the fact that Barry had been burrito’d into his hoodie and tucked away to hide in Len’s _lap_. It was not the usual prison yard closeness from Snart.

“My friend has been finding trouble too easily lately. So I’m keeping him busy instead,” came Len’s easy reply. He tugged on Barry’s arm and Barry automatically rolled it away. The tug of war resulted in Len settling an arm around his waist to make him sit still instead. Barry allowed it, just looked away when Len tucked his chin on his shoulder. “It's a lot more fun when the toys play back. Isn't it, Barry?”

But since Len was playing at being a boss, Barry didn't reply, just slouched and tried to stay out of the way. It was just a show, he wasn't supposed to play back, but there were these tiny, quick movements that Len noticed that told him how badly Barry wanted to engage. Len was playing at being a jerk but the moments of actual closeness were small and made him smile, usually into the back of Barry’s sweater.

It was a mild distraction out in the yard, but Barry got his revenge when they got back to their bunk. Len saw it the second they walked in the room and he knew it was not going to be kind.

“So what was all that about?” Barry asked. He plopped down in the middle of Len’s bed and didn’t shove over to let him in, sprawled out with his feet on the floor and leaned back on his hands to take up as much space as possible. There was a reason Len was territorial over his sleeping spaces and Barry silently let him know where he could shove that preference.

“Because _trust me_ is usually what precedes a _plan_ with you, not public displays of forced affection.”

Len crouched in front of him, grinned up at him with his elbows on Barry’s knees. “I figured you’d catch on.”

One eyebrow arched to show his suspicion despite the amusement, Barry nodded. “I’m a little worried we work so well together.”

“Not where I thought I’d be this time last week, nope,” agreed Len. “You gonna give me back my bed?”

“Maybe. You gonna tell me what the show was for?” replied Barry.

Len shrugged it off. “Maybe later.”

The response he received then was pure indifference. Barry didn’t budge. Len smiled and leaned up to push him back against the wall to make room for the both of them. The contest for control went on in the shadows of the bunk, Barry eventually winning by pinning Len to his pillow completely out of breath. He was younger, had loads more energy and endurance, and was learning the benefit of going _slow_. All Len knew was that he had not prepared himself for the battle he had picked in the yard and Barry was mercilessly smug in letting him know it.

When they hit the boundary line just before the point of no return, Barry backed off. They hadn’t hit lights out yet, they had been watched all day, and there were just some things he didn’t want to have lit up in a spotlight for the whole cell block. It was exactly as uncomfortable as Len had figured it would be. Barry grinned as Len growled at him, quiet and grasping at him but not pushing. They settled down, Barry on his knees curled over Len, their hands tangled together over their heads as they tried to cool off. When it seemed safe to move, Len let go of Barry’s hands and instead caught his face, tugged him in for a deep kiss that could have very easily started things up again.

Instead, Len let go, tapped Barry’s leg in a silent request to be let up, and he moved to start messing with the upper bunk. Barry didn’t follow him out, waited with that curious patience that Len could never manage. He tied the corner edges of the blanket up over the water pipe that ran over the cell gate to block the view to the outside world. And it kept everyone else out, hours before lights out. It would also keep everyone talking for a few days.

When Len ducked under the top bunk again, Barry was grinning at him. He pointed to the blanket. “Really?”

Len smirked, reached in and pulled at him to drag him off the bed. He sweetened it with a kiss, but still didn’t start things up again. Barry was surprised, off balance, and didn’t know what was coming. But he didn’t act worried about it, either. Len kept his hands in safe territory at Barry’s hips, the thing he did when he was steering more than tugging close.

“Go take care of your city,” Len told him. It was the last thing Barry had expected. He pulled back enough to meet Len eye to eye.

“Wait. Seriously?” he asked. It was easily another two hours before lights out. They still had another bed check. Even the sheltered Barry Allen understood that what Len was suggesting was a huge risk. “What if they come around for count?”

Len shrugged it off. “Then I talk through a sheet.”

“What about me though...” Barry’s question trailed off at the dismissal in the smile on Len’s face.

“So I tell them you can't talk right now. They saw us earlier, nobody will risk it.”

At the reminder of Len’s schemes after dinner, a blush crept up his face. Barry gulped down the complaint and nodded. He started to move to prepare his exit, thought twice about it and moved back to pin Len against the wall again for another kiss. With the blanket up, it ran the risk of starting up something Len wouldn’t want to finish by lights out. He smacked him on the ass as a hint to leave and Barry finally made himself move away, a grin on his face. Len watched him disappear, a fully unnatural experience he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to, and then tried to figure out how to keep sane by himself all night, locked up behind a sheet.

 

\-----


	14. Chapter 14

Len was still asleep when Barry got back. It was startling to suddenly have someone next to his bed and wriggling to untie the blanket over his head. The first thing Len saw was the makeup compact Barry had set on the edge of the bed near him. Len investigated idly, oddly not in any hurry to be awake. The kid took the blanket down, so apparently there would be no messing around, Len didn't need to tuck him in or anything. Barry needed sleep anyway.

Once the blanket was untied and tossed on Barry’s bunk, he sat back down on the floor. Surprised by the choice in seating, Len watched him settle in, one eyebrow raised as he toyed with the compact between his fingers.

“Something you wanna share with the class, Barry?” he asked, taunting. Barry rolled his eyes at it and snatched the makeup back. He held it up, waved it a little.

“I need to hide this,” he said. He shoved back the hood of his zip-up sweater and showed off the makeup-applied bruises. “It should work to keep some of the suspicion off, right?”

Len reached out and rubbed his thumb across the green-brown shadow across Barry’s face. It didn’t budge so he tried licking his thumb and then attacked it again, Barry dodging belatedly when he realized the prank. Len was tired, and he was playing, and Barry smiled at him for it. Giving up on messing with the hopefully well-set makeup, Len angled over the edge of the bed, still laying down and refusing to wake up. He levered just far enough out that he could point Barry’s attention to the paint-covered air-vent high over the sink. The vent cover was small, plain metal diamond shapes that would not accommodate the size of the compact. Barry frowned at it, waved the compact again.

“It’s too big,” he pointed out. Len flopped back on the bed, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

“Where have you been for the last few hours?” he asked. It was a leading question and Barry didn’t know where it was going.

“You know where I’ve been. You told me to go,” he replied. Eyes closed as he pretended to go back to sleep, Len nodded.

“How’d you get there?”

His momentary idiocy finally sinking in, Barry closed his eyes, flopped the plastic compact against his forehead for being so completely stupid. “Right.”

Barry disappeared to go put the makeup away. When he got back in sight, he kicked off his shoes and moved to climb up to his bunk. There was an odd sense of missing something left over at the prospect and Len changed his mind on his decision to let Barry sleep. Instead, he reached out, caught a hand around the back of Barry’s knee and tugged, making him kneel on the edge of the bed. It was a pretty obvious hint that very effectively changed Barry’s plans for the rest of the morning. He was smiling as he stretched out into the narrow space beside Len.

“I already took the blanket down,” he pointed out. Len nodded, glanced up to peek out at the still dim cellblock.

Barely whispering as he moved to avenge himself for the way Barry had left him hours earlier, he advised, “So shut up already.”

 

\------

 

Thanks to his very smug cellmate, Barry didn’t get to sleep before breakfast. Len had waged an absolute vendetta and Barry was there for it. They settled down not long before count, and Barry had a helluva time making himself presentable again. Len hadn’t touched the makeup on his face once, but his hair and clothes were not as lucky. Len had slept in his boxers and didn't have the problem Barry had been left with at all. But somehow Barry managed to change clothes and make it to the line to be counted, just barely. They caught breakfast and then the showers and only then did Len take pity and let Barry sleep. It was an excuse to keep Barry off the yard and out of trouble. It stood out that he needed the sleep when the usually light sleeper instead slept right through the doors closing after the yard hour was up.

Not long after that though, the gate of their cell opened up again and Ortega came by to collect Len. Another appointment with a lawyer. Len was surprised because his public defender was too much of a drunk to be awake and making house calls by ten AM. Plus he hadn't shown much interest in how Len wanted to handle his case before. It was suspicious, and Len angrily caught himself worrying about what it meant for Barry; he needed to clean up his priorities.

As he left, Len heard Barry grumble about it but he managed not to say anything. Len lurked at the gate to be sure it closed him inside before he followed the officer out to the hall and to the visiting area.

His suspicions notched higher as the officer led him to one of the private meeting rooms instead of the public visitors area. He was left in the empty room on his own, no handcuffs. Ordinarily, if the circumstances were at all different, a rookie mistake like that was an invitation to escape. Len was an opportunist and explorer. Any unlocked door was dangerous.

But not without getting Barry away from Lewis first. He hadn't finished the heist yet.

All the same, he mentally pouted a little as he stared at the door and waited, his mind tracing the likely routes out, remembering where he could find a uniform to steal or what other ways he could find out into the real world.

He wasn't there very long before the door opened to reveal someone who was decidedly not Len’s lawyer. It was instead a surly looking Detective Joe West. _Shit_.

“I didn't know you had received a law degree, Detective. Always figured you were more of the hands-on kinda guy, myself. A little less _cerebral_ ,” greeted Len. If the man was there to kill him on behalf of poor Barry, Len was at least going to get out in front of the bullet.

“Don't start with me, Snart, or I’ll show you hands-on,” Joe replied. He was attempting to be polite but there was anger on his face even if he could keep it out of his voice. Joe moved the chair to the end of the table before he sat down, putting only the corner between them. Len looked to the door, waiting for someone else to enter. No one did. It was apparently _Joe's_ time. Len tapped his knuckles on the table in front of him and tried to channel patience.

“Not to be pedantic, but _one_ of us has to start _somewhere_ because I don't have all day,” Len replied. “So the floor is yours, Detective. I need to be back before dinner.”

Joe didn't seem in any great hurry about it. “I don't know what you’re in a rush for. Barry said the food in this place is crap. I would think you’d want the extra time off the block more.”

“You’ll notice _Barry_ isn't here right now,” said Len. Eyes narrowed, he cut a sideways glance at Joe then before looking to the door.

“Yeah. My son’s behind bars while you’re in here. Waiting for your lawyer,” said Joe. He leaned a bit closer, still trying to claim Len’s attention. “Sorry for cutting in line but I wanted to talk to you.”

Despite himself, Len grinned down at the table then. “Lemme guess. It has something to do with Officer _Ortega_.”

“No. It has to do with Barry Allen. So I want you to look at me, and I want you to answer a few questions, and then I’ll be on my way,” said Joe. That was a big ask. No part of Len wanted to comply.

“Does Barry know you’re here?” he asked instead, watching his fingers scrub at the table rather than risk looking _anywhere near_ a man who called Barry his son.

“As a matter of fact, he doesn't. And you’re not gonna tell him,” said Joe, a cheerful smile to his voice. “You wanna know how I know that?”

“I could guess.”

Joe waved a hand to encourage it. “Why don't you try.”

Len was slowly resigning himself to the detective’s interrogation. He wasn't asking for blood, so far. He quirked an eyebrow and glanced briefly toward Joe. “Officer Ortega.”

“Got it in one. Officer Ortega. Who happens to be a friend of mine. And who would not have to try very hard at all to make your life uncomfortable right now,” said Joe.

There was no point in arguing that. If Len told Joe the truth, mentioned that disabling Len meant hurting Barry, it would sound like a threat and put them even further at odds. They were, for once, on the same side. Len just had to figure out if he wanted to try convincing Joe of that or not. Len stayed quiet, tried to wait out the detective’s agenda.

“Look, Snart... no. _Len_ , is it?” Joe asked. He switched tracks quickly, like he hadn't been expecting it himself. It was a surprise to Len, however equally suspicious. He looked up then, watching the detective to try to figure out what the man was angling for. Joe waved a hand at him.

“Barry calls you Len. So that's your name. Yes?”

Len nodded, reluctantly choosing to engage with the man out of a dangerous curiosity. Joe wasn't exactly smiling, he wasn't happy to be there, but it was rare that a cop put effort into treating Len like a fellow human.

“Good. Then I’m gonna be honest with you, Len,” said Joe. “I don't know you. And what I know of you, I've got no reason to like you. You got my boy locked up in a maximum security prison, I had to drive over a hundred miles to get here to talk to _you_ , because I know if I tried to show up to see Barry, he’d be hurt over having to talk to me in _handcuffs_. In _this place_. That he never wanted to step foot in again after his dad left it. You follow? You hurt my little family in a big way. And I don't think you even know it.”

Maybe there were things Len didn't know about Barry, but he understood where Barry was just then better than Joe could. And he didn't want to sit there and listen to somebody try to make it worse. “I didn't tell Barry to help-”

“You _let_ him,” said Joe, talking over him, the first hint of anger in his voice. The detective lowered his voice though. “And you didn't help him _out_ of it. You tossed a few shovels of dirt in on the coffin, near as I can tell.”

Len diverted his attention to the table again. “Saying I _let_ him do something implies I had any say in the matter, and that is _not_ how I remember things going down.”

The detective smacked his hand on the corner of the table between them. “Barry defended you! To me, to his _friends_. I haven't exactly seen you step up for him yet.”

Len looked over to Joe. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't come up with much in the way of proof to offer. “I _meant_ , Barry didn't need me to let him do anything. He _knew_ what he was doing, that's all. He didn't need anybody’s _permission_.”

“Yeah? If he knew what he was doing, how’d he end up here in the infirmary for twenty four hours?” asked the detective. “Because everything I've heard says you put him there. And everything _Barry’s_ said he knows about you, well, that says you didn't. So which is it?”

The defensive anger of a helpless father was a sad, guilt-inducing thing to watch. Len didn't know what to do; telling the truth wouldn't be believed, and even if it was, it could be overheard and that was a whole new problem. But it was Barry’s family wanting to know if he was safe. Len took a breath, tried to sort out an answer.

“Maybe Barry knows what he's talking about,” Len finally said, very careful. “He was hurt when I _found_ him.”

“And _you_ didn't hurt him,” Joe clarified. He pointed back toward the door. “If I asked him, that's still what he’d tell me. To my face. That’s what he'd say?”

“He’d tell you I tried to help him.” Len shook his head.

“Are you _capable_ of giving a straight answer?” Joe asked, frustrated. Len smiled without meaning to.

“I tend to frustrate Barry, too,” he said. The observation didn't make Joe any happier.

“For his sake, I’m going to believe you weren't the reason he ended up in the infirmary. But for the record, I’m trusting Barry’s word on that. Not yours,” said Joe. He looked Len in the eye then, held his attention like headlights on a doe. “You still have a lot of work to do to live up to the human being Barry wants us to believe you are. And from where I’m sitting, that means you keep him the hell out of the infirmary. You got it?”

“Mighty high expectations of me,” drawled Len. “I’m a con, not a miracle worker.”

“Then work harder. If you’re gonna hang a sheet on my boy, in _this place_ , you can damn well _earn the right_ ,” returned Joe. Len rolled his eyes.

“He’s not even there half the time and you _know_ where he goes,” said Len. “Get over it. I haven't done anything.”

The detective stabbed a finger at the table in front of Len before waving toward the door. “That’s nice and all but that's not what I hear from the guards here. And you’re old enough to understand if we were out there in the real world, you’d be dealing with _me_ on a regular fucking basis, _shotgun in my hand_ for this shit you pulled over on him. He's worked hard to be somebody, do _something good_ with his life. And he can't do it from here. So if you’re gonna sit here, _not do_ anything, and _take that away_ from a whole city, for once make yourself better. At least enough to _deserve_ him.”

There was a part of Len that was angry, pride that wanted to flip the table in the detective’s face and rage. But there was that one small damning voice in the back of his mind that chimed in to remind him that the detective was right. It sounded a lot like Jack's voice, too, which only added credence. It was two against one and Len lost in a baffling upset. Barry would never belong in Len’s world and Len would never belong in his, that wasn't exactly a newsflash. They were _allies_ , but that didn't mean Len deserved anything out of it. Alliances always folded at some point, it was just human nature. The detective was right, there was an inherent imbalance in any relationship from an alliance like his and Barry’s, and they couldn't hold it steady for long. Not without change Len wasn't willing to make.

With a grudging nod, Len agreed to the man’s point. “Lewis wants him dead. I’m trying to get him to the hearing. So tell his _attorney_ to make sure he gets to walk. Because if he comes back here, it won't be for long,” he said. He wasn't saying anything that wasn't already common knowledge. If the man wanted an honest exchange, he would try.

“And before you try to tell me I’m not doing _enough_ , understand one thing. He's a naive _cop_ in here. He’s got a _neon target_ on his back,” Len went on, anger kept carefully in check. “The only way to keep him safe is to either help him stand on his own, fight for himself as much as he can... or attach him to somebody’s pocket who can protect him. I've been trying the former, but if you really want to keep him out of the _infirmary_ for _fighting_ , in _prison_ , just _throw a rock_ so I know which gang you want him _sold off_ to. He’ll be kept safe from the bounty on his head then, but I promise you he _won't_ be happy. I am _doing_ what I _can_.”

To his credit, Detective West didn't act on the flare of anger that crossed his face at Len’s words. Still, feeling an uncomfortable and unusual amount of personal guilt, Len looked back to the table. The silence hung between them, somehow quite loud.

“There’s more you can do, and we both know it,” Joe finally said. “And he keeps telling his friends not to piss you off about it, not to even ask, so this is me, _not_ asking.”

“I told you. I’ll get him to the hearing like he wants, that's all I can do,” said Len, frustrated. “After that, talk to his _lawyer_.”

“No, I think I’ll let you do that,” said Joe. “Now, I’ll thank you for what you've done so far, whatever it is, I don't know. I don't _want_ to know. But we’re down to the wire. Do _better_.”

Len glared over at him. He didn't do well with people telling him what to do. Joe stood up then, held out his hand in a surprising peace offering. “I’ll owe you one. Please.”

Len squinted at the gesture, not sure if he could trust it. Joe West was still a cop, an angry one, and Len didn't have a great track record with them. Until maybe Barry, anyway. And the detective was worried about Barry, something Len understood well enough lately. Reluctantly, he nodded and shook the man’s hand. As long as Barry came through on his end of the deal, Len was collecting on debts someday.

But he was admittedly a little surprised that it had come to a peaceful end, given that Joe West was there as just one of Barry’s two fathers. He had a lot of weight behind the growl and, apparently, no teeth. At least, not at the moment, because Barry would be pissed. Len considered telling him about it, for all of two seconds before he decided he didn't want to risk it.

The detective let himself out and Len stared at the door as it closed behind him. Supposedly his lawyer was waiting in line, so he had to shake off the cornered feeling and get back in the game. There was no reason that he knew of for his lawyer to need to see him. The case was supposed to be over with already if the man weren't an idiot, so the only thing that might change would be an offer from the state. Len wasn't sure what he might do with that and he tried to derail his thoughts to that avenue of potential and far away from Joe West and Barry Allen.

There was maybe a minute of peace after Detective West left the room. Len caught himself fidgeting and stood up. He didn't want to pace but he wanted to move. Instead he found the middle ground, caught the back of his chair and leaned on it, scowling at the table. There was a very strong urge to smash the chair against the wall, but he didn't want to put that much energy into it.

He rethought that plan somewhat when the door opened again. Yet again it was not his lawyer who walked in the room. A lovely blonde woman walked in the room instead, the door held open for her by an equally familiar man in a suit. They looked like lawyers. One of them actually was a lawyer. But they weren't Len’s lawyer. They met his glare with smiles, forced like Joe West’s had been.

Oliver Queen closed the door snug behind them and then waved to the chair in front of Len. “Have a seat, Mr. Snart. Let’s talk business.”

Laurel Lance, of the Assistant District Attorney’s office out of Star City, -and Barry Allen’s lawyer- took a seat in front of the door. Len gave very serious consideration to asking to go back to his cell, as he had already had more than enough of Barry’s friends’ bullying for the day. It hadn't been a walk in the park for him, either, and the idea of letting Barry stew just to spite _them_ did cross his mind. But if Barry could hand him a favor owed by a police detective, it was possibly worth hearing out a couple of political climbers.

And Queen was _very_ careful to block Len’s access to the door.

So, because he didn't want to follow orders, Len moved to the narrow end of the table and took up the seat Detective West had vacated. Barry’s friends could stare at each other across the table and Len would listen to what they had to say from the sidelines.

Laurel spoke up first, prim and proper behind her court papers, but there was a recognizable, harder edge to her tone. “I’d like to offer you a deal, Mr. Snart. One-time only option. Doesn't leave this room.”

Len tilted his head, curious despite himself. “I've noticed Barry’s friends like to deal-in off the books.”

“I wonder why that might be,” said Oliver. Len smirked at him as he recognized a code. And leverage.

“Scarlet’s got secrets and can't lie worth a damn,” he said. Laurel narrowed her eyes but Oliver caught her attention, shook his head to signal that she should let it go.

“We’re not asking anybody to lie. Just keep their mouth shut,” she said. Also something Len had noticed Barry was bad at, but he did not dare point that out to the man’s friends. They wanted him to lie to Barry, like West wanted him to lie to Barry, to protect him.

“About what?” Len asked after a moment. Laurel pulled a tablet computer from her briefcase then, switched it on and set it up facing Len. A near-perfect playback showed the interior of the vault. Len sat back as he had to watch his father kill Barry. Again.

“How about your motives for walking into that vault?” Oliver asked. “Because with just a little effort, Laurel could show the jury you and Barry were both afraid for your lives in that operation.”

Len almost laughed. “For real? That’s what you want to go with?”

Less skilled at putting on a show than the actual lawyer in the room, Oliver scowled. “As much as it pains me to say it, with a convincing enough testimony, it is _possible_ you could walk away from this when Barry does.”

Curious at the familiar promise, Len tilted his head and looked to Laurel. She nodded.

“If I could get you and Barry’s word against your father’s, it’s a possibility we could petition for duress and allege kidnap, essentially,” she said. “I’m not going to lie, it’s a long shot, but they can’t find your record. They can throw all the newspaper headlines at the jury that they want, but they wouldn’t be able to point to a single court case.”

“But we would need you to testify against your father,” added Oliver. There was an edge to his voice when he said it. Barry had said something. Len set his jaw, tapped impatiently at the table. He couldn’t even ask Barry what tales he told out of school without opening the can of unpredictability from Barry finding out Len was talking to _his_ friends. The only satisfaction Len would get out of talking to Oliver on this subject was listening to the absolute suffering in his voice at the suggestion that Len could walk away from the case without jail time. _That_ seemed to bother the man a lot.

Len would take what he could get.

“Fine,” he said eventually. He looked to Oliver and almost smiled. “So what do we need to do to get me back out on the streets? I walk when Barry walks, _that’s_ the deal.”

 

\------

 

Barry woke up again when Len returned. He had leaned up on an elbow to look at him as he walked in, a direct contrast to Len, who was very careful not to look at Barry.

“How’d it go for you then?” Barry asked. Sour over the grilling he had received from Barry’s friends, Len’s eyes narrowed just a little and he only glanced at Barry before dropping down onto the lower bunk.

“Peachy.”

Not feeling up to being civil just then, that was all Len had to say to Barry for awhile. It was self preservation as much as consideration for his ally/friend, or whatever they had going. He didn’t want to say anything to mess it up, but he wasn’t happy with Barry just then. Whether he caught on or not, Barry flopped back on the mattress over Len’s head with an exaggerated amount of energy.

Mere seconds later, Barry dropped down to the space between the wall and the bunks, wiping at his eyes like he was still tired. Len looked out at the cellblock rather than at him. He started working through the tai chi movements, modifying them for the cramped quarters. They were both very careful not to look at each other to risk focusing any attention to feed the surly mood. The uncompanionable silence clearly bothered Barry though and he tried again to poke at it.

“Do you want me to talk to Laurel about-”

Len rolled his eyes at the bars. “Shut up.”

In light of the clear negative, Barry didn’t make the offer again, wising up to the notion that it was safer to stick to the tai chi until the cold front moved past.

 

\-----

 

Out in the yard that afternoon, Len was still surly. He didn't talk to Barry much, just kept him nearby. The usual traffic happened that Barry didn't really want to know about. The way Barry behaved around Len’s prison yard contacts, it was like he expected Len to be running drugs in his spare time. It kept Barry out of trouble so Len didn’t bother to correct him. He instead met with the usual suspects who could provide him with leads and jobs on the outside, even when at times that meant the only conversations that happened required him to pretend to pay attention to somebody whining about their poor dying grandmother or something; pretend to care, keep the contact, move on to the next one for yard small-talk. Len kept it away from Barry, that kind of business done out of earshot or around the corner of the bleachers.

It was harder to catch the attention of his contacts with Barry around. One of Len’s resources even warned him off the effort he was putting into him.

“Lewis is gonna drag you both down,” the man warned. “You’re stupid trying to keep that cop alive.”

“Why? Have you heard something I haven’t?” Len asked him, feigning boredom. The other thief nodded.

“Someone said the knives are coming out, man. Soon. Ol’ Jocco won’t let anybody outside their game get to the gym. I got somebody selling blades if you need ‘em. You haven’t been back all that long, so I figure...”

Len turned down the benevolent offering but not because he didn’t believe problems were on the horizon. He was just hoping to have something better in place before anything went down. The last thing he needed was Barry finding a knife in the cell. It risked too many questions. Instead he tracked down Roscoe and his brother, looking for answers.

 

\--------

 

The rumor was right; Roscoe and Jocco really had shut down the gym. It wasn’t a race thing, either. It was simple inventory. They knew something was up and they didn’t want any of their equipment to go missing. They weren’t going to sacrifice any of their operation for Lewis Snart’s battles, and all it took was one smart-ass inmate using a weight bar as a club for them to lose their corner of the yard. That wasn’t going to happen.

As if to prove to them that he was a pain in the ass, Lewis ambushed Barry again as Len was talking to the guys at the gym. Their conversation cut short as Len took off for the fences, Roscoe, Silver and Carper not far behind. Even Jocco left the gym to join in.

“I’m sick of your father’s tantrums,” Jocco warned Len as they moved. “He settles down or I see he goes in the ground.”

“Stand in line,” Len returned. Up ahead, it looked like Barry had himself a shoving match with Lewis. From what Len could see, Barry was learning how to defend himself without giving himself away. No speed, no super strength, just simple physics. Like a science nerd who knew about leverage and how to make small objects move large ones. Barry charged, caught the bigger man around the ribs, and left him a few feet away from where he started, on the ground and gasping for air.

It broke Barry past the row of Lewis’ brawny friends, got his back off the wall created by the chain link fence. He saw Len and Silver and the usual crowd of sympathizers on their way over to collect him and he backed toward them.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Snart,” Barry ordered. “Crazy old man.”

Len was at his back then, literally, had a hand at his shoulder and was braced to pull Barry behind him if needed. He wasn't happy. He raised a hand to wipe a bit of blood off Barry’s temple from the rough edge of the chainlink. He looked back to where Lewis was picking himself up off the ground.

“You heard him, pops,” said Len. “You need to let this go. He's not your problem. Step off.”

“You know that's bull,” Snart said, pointing at Barry. “You know he's lying.”

There was something different in Lewis’ argument this time, something behind it. He was planning something and Len could hear it in his tone. He was pushing Barry to see what Barry could do. It was a fishing expedition, to find out just how useful Barry was. And Len knew his father wasn’t smart enough to keep quiet when he went fishing. There would be problems if they didn’t shut him down soon. Barry was screwed; Lewis wasn’t going to let it go. One way or another he was determined to get his hands on Barry and the metahealing was going to be a problem that fed right into that solution for him. All Len could do was make sure everyone knew the old man was crazy.

“What, because he's a cop?” Len shook his head. “Give it up. Not yours. Got it?”

Lewis didn’t appreciate his son taking sides. At least, not the obviously wrong one. Len waved their attention to the guard tower over their heads, to the shadows of the men talking on their radios and the sniper rifle pointed at their feet. “I’m going inside before it starts raining. Maybe you should stay outside and cool off.”

It wasn’t a declaration of war but it went over about as well. Len served as a human shield between Barry and Lewis’ crew as he finally let Barry walk away.

 

\------

 

Len followed Barry back to the cell and entered on his heels. It wasn’t the safest place to go - three walls and one easily blocked off gate - but it was where Barry needed to be just then. It was away from people. It was away from thugs in the yard and unproven guards. Things were hot enough now that if he needed to, Barry could just phase through the wall and be gone. It was an imperfect plan, with a lot more problems built in, but it was better than messing around with the inmates of Iron Heights.

“Are you okay?” Len asked. He was still sore from meeting with Barry’s friends but that was a far distant concern compared to his rattled and adrenaline hyped cellmate’s current situation. Barry rolled his eyes as he turned on him, held out his arms to show the dirt and mud on his shirt and pants, and the fake bruise on his face.

“I’m fine,” he said, “Which is a bit of a _problem_ , as it turns out.”

Len watched him, attention split between Barry on one side and the open gate of their cell on the other. “So what do you want to do about it?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet. But your father is a _huge freaking pain in the ass_. I understand why you shot him now,” Barry grumbled. Len snorted, shook his head, but didn’t say anything. He would have done worse if he’d had the chance. Next time he had the chance, Lewis would be down like the rabid dog he was, but Len didn’t tell Barry that. It wasn’t exactly a safe subject with a cop, maybe especially a cop he slept with.

With Len still standing by the bunks, Barry didn’t have much room to pace but he tried to anyway. When he got too close, Len caught him around the waist and pulled him back against him. He was careful about it, didn’t trap Barry, let him keep his hands free, would have let him move away if he wanted to. He wanted to keep him close, and he wanted to keep him away from the gate, and he wanted to feel like he was helping. And it looked like Barry didn’t know what he wanted to even do with himself. But Barry went still, leaned against the small comfort offered like maybe it worked. Len rested his chin on Barry’s shoulder and watched the cellblock outside the open gate, on guard in the hopes that Barry could maybe stand down and feel safe.

 

\--------


	15. Chapter 15

Barry came back from his nightly constitutional tired but he still crawled into Len’s bunk for those few hours before count. And of all the crazy things to do, they _slept_. It was an open and unignorable display of trust. Len knew he was damned because it went both ways. Barry hid between Len and the brick wall and stole the damn blanket like a thief. He actually seemed to get a few hours of real sleep though.

Sleep didn’t mean he woke up happy in prison, however. He was jumpy and growly. Cranky. With the sunlight came more opportunities for attack and he seemed tired of the game. He walked around ready for a fight, not just expecting one but primed for one, tense and coiled for a punch. It was actually amusing to watch and Len stayed out of his way to let Barry shoulder his attitude between the cons of the prison yard. He wasn’t a bully, didn’t take his bad attitude out on anyone, but with the general atmosphere of the past few days, everyone stayed out of Barry’s way as he and Len made their way out to the benches. He sat in his usual spot and then... fidgeted. At slightly higher than the average human speed. Barry sat on the second bench up on the bleachers and Len had his usual place just one row up from him, so he rested his book on Barry’s head to remind him to be still to not get himself in trouble.

“I don't get it, Len,” Barry said, a quiet complaint about something that had apparently been bothering him all day. The book went completely unnoticed. “What the hell is so great about this place that you’d ever want to come back?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere as they waited in the yard to see what came of the day’s bad mood. Withdrawing a little, book back in his own space, Len narrowed his eyes at the unauthorized effort at prying.

“These are the only benches in the yard that don't have raging douchebags attached,” he replied with a shrug. “I have standards.”

A step below and straddling the bench, Barry scowled over his shoulder at him for playing dumb. “No. Iron Heights. Here. Prison.”

Len’s expression didn't change much. He slid over a little, shifted just enough to plant one foot on the bench at Barry’s back and the other solidly on the bench between Barry’s knees, fencing him in.

“That’s awful specific and _judgey_ for you, Barry. I am surprised,” Len said. Given the threatening stances he had gotten from Barry’s friends the day before, the line of questioning was almost suspicious. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that level of nosy.”

“I’m not being nosy. I’m pissed off. You could be a lot better than this place. You just keep coming back,” returned Barry. He was pouting. Len pressed his leg along Barry’s back, leaned forward to whisper down at him.

“You get that _you’re_ in here, too, right?” he asked. It wasn't exactly an unfair point. He shuffled his book to one hand, rested it at Barry’s shoulder, waved the other hand enough to point at the bleachers they sat on. “So whatever life you’re so proud of has its drawbacks too.”

“That's not what I meant and you know it,” Barry pointed out. Len quirked up an eyebrow.

“No, I Don't. So tell me then, Barry. What _part_ was asking why I come back to prison? The cop-part that wants to know how to catch the vile reoffenders like myself? How a mastermind works their evil schemes?”

Without taking his hands from the front pocket of his hoodie, Barry shoved at Len’s knee, not to get him to move but, rather, just for the physical movement and contact. “The part that doesn't want to be here. The part that wants a real life again, where things change everyday and... and it's not this stupid planned-out _empty_ time... and where- where you can show your face in public without someone gunning for it. You miss out on everything this way, Lenny. And you don't have to. You shouldn't.”

They had been quiet, not likely to be overheard because nobody cared what the snitch-cop had to say except Len and sometimes Silver. Still leaned close, his surrounding stature oppressive as much as protective, Len looked around just to be sure. Then he took pity on Barry’s frustrated state, let out a sigh.

“So, what, you want to know why I bother getting caught?”

“No, why you bother _risking_ getting caught,” said Barry. “Why you do stuff to chance it. There is nothing worth this.”

Realizing the line of questioning was more innocently intended than his paranoia suggested, Len smiled at him. “Remember, you’re the only reason I'm still here, Baer. I’m usually gone by now. But _you_ said we can't. Lady Justice _must_ have her day in court.”

“Not my point,” grumbled Barry. Len shrugged.

“ _Prison_ comes with the _career choice_. What I get out of my brief _vacations_ to Iron Heights is usually time to catch up on my reading, for one thing,” said Len. “They have a surprisingly eclectic collection. I've _donated_ a few of them before because I figure I can give _back_ a little.”

Barry leaned forward, rested his forehead to Len’s knee. Then started lightly beating his head against his leg because there wasn't a _wall_ handy. Len pretended not to notice, even though he intentionally bounced his knee to meet Barry’s efforts. He was bullshitting and he figured Barry knew it. The question was a personal one for Len, not one he was required to answer. It wasn't an answer that Barry would understand, anyway.

“And I can catch up on the rumor mill. Get a feel for the way traffic is moving around the area, who’s still available, who’s gone bad, that sort of thing...” Len continued. Forehead rested and still against Len, Barry swiveled his attention just enough to squint up at him.

“You’re here on some kind of _recognizance_ mission? Liar.” He sounded confused. Somehow happy that Barry had seen through it, Len grinned and went back to reading the trade paperback in his hands. Getting caught in the lie didn't mean he was going to answer it though.

“I’m _here_ because _you're_ nosey,” Len corrected. “So stop asking questions you don't want the answers to.”

Barry resumed the ‘ _thump... thump_ ’ of his forehead to Len’s knee. Despite the awkward of Barry's mental state just then, Len didn’t push him, sensing he was feeling cornered, but he stuck around. He gave Barry a shove when he got too wound up and needed brought back to reality. And then, later, he kissed him stupid in the shadows of their shared cell. It made them both feel better, just for a little while.

 

\------

 

The next fight was after lunch, in the yard again, between the bleachers, with Len right there from the start. It wasn't Lewis’ boys this time. TenK decided to overstep and Len decided the punk needed put down.

“Hey, Pretty.”

Len heard them before he saw them. They weren't hiding but they were out of his sight between the benches, six feet away and behind him. they went after Barry, quite literally behind Len’s back. It didn't go over as well as they probably hoped.

“Len... what do I do?” Barry asked, caution on his voice, like he couldn't figure out if he was supposed to fight or try talking his way out of the new corner. Len looked over at him, saw the men, and tossed his book to the ground. No questions asked. He was out of patience for people attacking things he saw as his territory. Which was, admittedly, a large reason why he didn't usually establish territory; he didn't like being baited. Barry was right, he was bait, because Len considered him his.

“Step back, TenK,” Len ordered.

“We heard you don't share. But this ain't your place, Snart. You’re just a _guest_. Just _visiting_ ,” the man returned. He nodded at Barry. “And the new fish ain't _paid rent_.”

“You take that up with me, not him,” said Len. He angled to push Barry back, away from the trap between the bleachers, but their easy exit had already been blocked by one of the thug’s friends. Unfortunately for them, they weren't backed by Len’s father. Maybe the old man was crazy and worthless, even weak, but Len knew better than to take him down. He didn't have the slightest reservation about putting TenK and his friends down. The first man crazy enough to get too close got decked in the jaw and everything spiraled down from there.

The men kept grabbing for Barry, two of them actually managed to drag him to the ground and away from Len. It backfired when Len tackled TenK down and out, one too many hits to the head leaving him faded and weak. The other two got Barry as far as behind the bleachers before the bulls in the tower started yelling for them to knock it off. Len kicked one in the ribs as Barry dealt with the other.

The report of rifle fire brought the entire yard to a standstill. Cons hit the dirt with their hands behind their heads. Winded by the fight, Len had to hit Barry on the shoulder and reminded him to put his hands up before the guards swept in.

Even though the guards broke up the fight, Len was angry and nowhere near done. He had his own bruises now while Barry still had makeup. One of the officers who responded was Ortega and he shoved Len toward Barry and pointed them toward the block. Barry seemed confused, like he wasn't sure what to do with the fact that he had his arms in the air and corrections officers shoving all around him.

“Is there a report or-”

“Go!” Len interrupted. He caught Barry by the arm and moved quickly across the yard before Ortega changed his mind. “Self defense.”

But Len was still riled. His blood was up, he was angry and protective and overcharged on adrenaline. He kept looking at Barry, noting the healing bruises, the split lip slowly healing up and gone the next time Len glanced at him. Barry was fine, he healed, but Len was having a hard time convincing himself that was enough.

They went back to their cell rather than deal with any further attack. The walk inside didn’t actually slow Len down at all; he cornered Barry against the wall across from their bunk to get the fight out of his system in a more peaceful way.

“Wait! You're hurt...” Barry tried to pull Len's attention to the cut along his jaw.

“Don't care,” muttered Len. And he didn't. He wanted to _know_ Barry was fine, he wanted to have skin on skin and feel, to trust touch when he couldn't trust his eyes after watching wounds just disappear. That was his territory and someone else had tried to take it, he had to be sure.

He was very intent on pulling Barry’s shirt over his head, the fact that Barry still had his hoodie on completely notwithstanding. Barry tried to shove it back down and Len pulled his hands away with a firm and almost childish “ _Nyet!_ ” The switch to Russian surprised Barry and he gave a quiet laugh, apparently amused by his stubborn determination. It was more distracting, almost let them actually play and interact when the laugh pulled Len a little out of his worry. He noticed when Barry started provoking him, countering every effort Len made at getting under his clothes. The speed demon still snuck in to tug at Len’s waistband in between blocking his efforts.

Len backed off for a second, frustrated, and reassessed. It was a game. Barry’s smile gave him away and Len tried a new tactic. He stripped out of his own shirt and then stripped the blanket off Barry’s bed to hang at the gate instead.

When he turned back to Barry, Len waved to indicate his clothes. “Five seconds before you lose your favorite shirt.”

“ _You're_ gonna get _blood_ on it, it's ruined already,” Barry replied. He tried again ineffectively to make Len care about the cut on his own jaw and Len shrugged and dropped back to his earlier objective.

“Fine. If it’s ruined anyway,” he muttered. He wrestled with Barry for ownership of his hands and after some work, Barry let him win. But only because Len had started biting at his jaw, kisses alternating with the intentional scrape of teeth against his scruffy five o'clock shadow. Barry snuck his own teases in to keep him encouraged and keep up the game. Len pressed up against him and stretched his arms over his head, trapping Barry’s hands in a tangle of his shirts to pin him where he wanted against the brick wall. His fingers pressed and dug and he got very defensive if Barry moved even an inch from where any part of him was put as Len worked them to distraction.

It was rougher than they’d been before, no blankets to tangle with on the thin cot over the board on the bunk frame. The wall wasn't exactly comfortable. But Len didn’t hear Barry complain even once.

It wasn't boredom for Len anymore. Barry had started it when they got there, wasted days afraid to touch but sharing space at every excuse, like he didn't know how to ask for what he wanted. And it had already graduated to a more intense need. A mutual _expectation_ that the other could take care of whatever bugged him, make it go away, just for a little while. And already they didn't have to ask.

When Barry coaxed them away from the wall, Len actually let his guard down for once and let Barry take them a little further than they had before, pushed the boundary lines past where they had explored so far. The gate had already rattled shut behind the blanket and they had nowhere to be for awhile.

And it worked to calm them down; they could both still walk and felt relaxed afterward, but higher-level thinking took a little longer to come back online.

 

\-------

 

They tried the yard again after dinner. Things were a little rocky, everyone in the yard expecting problems. There was an energy to the place, something that even Barry caught onto that said the status quo wasn’t going to hold. The leering and talking and the dangerous catcalls hadn’t stopped since Barry’s first day, maybe got a little quieter, but they had suddenly resumed to full volume. The general population didn’t appreciate Barry’s presence bringing the bulls in to break up a fight. It disturbed the natural order of things, which made Barry dangerous, even if he didn't seem to know it.

It worked toward what Len wanted, an eventual goal that he still couldn't count on. He could just hope for it to work out in his favor, plant the seeds and water them as he could, see what would grow from it. From what he could see of the results so far, his accidental garden might yet yield fruit. There wasn't a lot of time left, but there was a chance it would pay off to let all sides continue to stew against each other.

Len couldn't work miracles, he had no way to make people get along when they were in prison with nothing better to do with their time than pick fights. But he could manipulate their boredom, and he could steer confrontations in small ways, at least enough to keep himself out of their path. That was mostly how he spent his yard time, just trying to keep himself out of the line of sight of the incoming problems. He couldn't do everything for Barry, and he had to take care of himself first, which sometimes meant leaving Barry to fate. Let somebody else sort that shit out. His scarlet speedster was somehow blessed; he’d be fine.

So when the yard emptied at nightfall, Len didn't fight back when Barry got shoved and pushed at a little more than usual as the cattle herded back through the main doors to get back to the cell block. From what Len could see, Barry had gotten better at handling the scuffles himself. He shoved back, stayed alert, watched who was around him as much as he could. Len was behind him, prevented any attacks Barry couldn't see coming. He kept things fair but he didn't intervene.

In the end, there were no further fights that day. Just quiet until lights out, camped out on Len’s bed, so he could lose at playing _War_ against his scarlet speedster. The kid had super-human speed, so technically he cheated; Len figured it didn't count as a loss given the extenuating circumstances.

 

\--------

 

A part of Len knew it wouldn't last. It was the annoying part of his brain that refused to feel things he couldn't control. He lay in an empty cell, by himself, staring at the bunk above him. He preferred the lower bunk because it was safer, less prone to surprises like someone kicking him, or shanking him through a thin foam mattress with a sharpened chunk of metal or reshaped toothbrush. He didn't like to sleep with his head near the bars, only ever risked it when he had to keep watch and needed to see down the rows of cells.

All it really meant was that he was a very fearful person, and, like everything else, he knew very clearly what those fears were. He could control what he could identify and assess and manipulate. Len had been in and out of prison since he was a kid, had talked to dozens of shrinks, knew how to play games. He knew what was true, too.

And he knew, alone and waiting, in an annoying holding pattern, that he refused to be afraid of Barry Allen. He knew Barry now, had seen him at his lowest, dragging himself through, and the man was actually a good one. Len knew what those were because he was used to dealing with their exact opposites. Because he wasn't one. Barry was nothing like him, and that was the one constant Len knew wouldn't change. Not without a lot of work on somebody’s part to destroy Barry’s world. Len figured then, maybe, Barry would get him, could understand what he played with. Then Barry would be dangerous.

It wasn't something Len wanted to be around for. He didn't want to risk being the cause of it. He liked Barry exactly as he was, exactly like everything Len knew he couldn't be. If he could put the world’s fastest man in a little glass jar and preserve him, he probably would have, but Barry wasn't a toy. He was a human and he was in a place he didn't belong, because it was convenient for Len to have him there. It was an acceptable risk, even though it wasn't one Len could really control.

He just had to figure out how to keep Barry his clever, sassy, stupidly cheerful self until it was over. That was all Len knew. That was as far as Len knew he could go. Barry wouldn't stick around past his court date, his friends would see to that. Just like his friends would keep Barry grounded in reality, would keep him from signing on for anything at all with a convict outside of prison.

For all Barry was smart, he was still a good person. His friends controlled him on the outside of the prison walls. That was why they didn't like that Len controlled him on the inside.

Logically, Len knew he had just a couple of days left with him. He tried to pad in some distance, tried to get used to it in the stillness of his empty cell. It also felt a little like they were wasting their time, like Barry should have been with him those extra few hours. He missed Barry. It just wasn't a good idea to dwell on it when he couldn't change it.

Which, of course, was why he was _still_ staring at the bunk when Barry walked through the wall. Len saw the blurred shadow in time to close his eyes, to pretend to be asleep.

The slant of Barry’s shoulders was a little more relaxed when he got back to the cell. Len watched through half-closed eyes as he sat on the floor between the lower bunk and the wall, elbows looped around his knees. He just sat there and stared out the bars.

He looked tired. He looked like he was carrying something, some dangerous worry that threatened the light that was that spirit. Maybe Len was just maudlin because he had been awake all night.

“Do you ever sleep?” Len wondered aloud. Whatever sleep Barry had managed the day before didn't seem to have done any good at all. Barry snorted, the sound somewhere between crazy and giving up.

“In theory,” he replied. Len reached out and pat his hair, rubbed light circles on the part of Barry that he could reach. He wanted to drag him onto the bed and hold him, coax a little sleep for the both of them, but he didn't. He kept it lazy.

To his relief, and heartbreak, Barry leaned into the touch, rested his shoulder on the edge of the bunk and relaxed against Len. The helpful touches worked their way down to his neck and shoulder as he got in easier reach, but Len was careful not to sit up or put much effort into moving at all.

“Thanks,” Barry said, quiet. Len didn’t reply, just carried on as he was doing, pretending to be mostly asleep still.

“What if this isn't temporary?” he asked. Len stalled out on the question, torn between wondering what had happened and wondering if Barry really wanted to stay with him longer. Barry didn't seem to notice. “If the hearing gets more charges added on and the judge leaves me in here. Are you still gonna stick around? I know you've got plans that don't involve... serving time...”

“A few, yeah,” muttered Len. He still stroked at Barry’s hair, but he was a little more aware that he was doing so, fingers trailing down to his neck to rub at bare skin, Barry adjusting to meet the touch. He was still distracted, still sounded lost. Like he was giving up.

“It's... I can't _walk_ without clearing my name. I can't do what you can. So I guess... what do I gotta do to not get eaten alive? I mean, you've said it's gonna happen and if you’re gonna take off, I’m... gonna need a... clue... or something.”

“Your dad did alright in here,” Len pointed out. He was surprised by Barry’s change in mood. Where was the ever hopeful optimism and sunny outlook? It wasn't natural. Len grasped at straws, trying to figure out how to find the bright side to pass the torch back to Barry. “He won people over, in the end.”

“My dad got his ass kicked in here,” Barry replied, not exactly amused. “And he could actually defend himself. Ten years for something he didn't do, Len. From what Laurel said? I’m looking at somewhere around five. And I can't even make it a week.”

Len laughed at that. Barry learned fast, from what he had seen. Without him there to hide behind, Barry would have been knocked around some, but he would have figured it out _faster_ than a week. Len tugged at Barry’s hair. “Don't sell yourself short.”

Barry looked over at him, looking at least a little amused but not fully present. Maybe he was just tired...

“Lenny, from the shit that goes on in this place, I’m lucky _you_ haven't sold me for a pack of cigarettes. That's kind of my concern here. If I’m stuck here and _you_ leave-”

That was proof enough that Barry learned quick, but it wasn't a welcome topic with Len. It wasn't how he worked. And it wasn't an outcome he would let someone like Barry accept. The kid had his kinks, but that wasn't one of them. If that’s where the bad mood had come from, it was time to evict it. Len tugged at Barry’s hair to draw his attention and angled forward to look him in the eye.

“What,” said Barry.

“I’m not giving you up for _cigarettes_ , Baer.” Len meant that, as much as he ever meant anything. “If there's anything I've learned about places like this, it's that they’re _temporary_. You can walk through the walls, Scarlet, and that's all this place is. Just a bunch of walls. Got it?”

Barry stared back at the intense glare just over the edge of the mattress. “Okay. So not for cigarettes then.”

Len squinted at him. “No. I don't smoke.”

With a shrug, Barry set the challenge out. “So, what then? We talking cash or car parts or what?”

There was a small tick to the corner of Len’s mouth. He was somewhere between jealous that he’d had a snappy, snarky comment snatched from right under his nose, and a little bit of pride that he had drawn Barry back out. There was maybe actual enjoyment of somebody else’s humor, too, which he would admit was very rare. Len scrubbed at Barry’s hair again.

“I like shinier things than that,” he said. “Good news is you can't afford it, either.”

Len was a lot of things, but he couldn't be bought for someone else’s agenda. He did his own thing, worked his own game. He was nobody’s puppet, not even Barry’s. He edged forward enough to kiss Barry on the temple.

“Shut up and get some sleep, Baer. I’ll _sell you_ in the morning if you really want me to. Just not until after breakfast.”

Then Len ducked back to his pillow, but he stubbornly still held on to Barry’s hair to play with until he fell asleep again. Because apparently that was his new favorite thing and Len was good at doing what he wanted. And Barry was good at letting him do what he wanted. Barry rested his chin against the mattress and Len felt his attention. He enjoyed it because it meant he could be lazier about playing with the curly hair. And if he was only going to get another few days of it, Len would take as much of Barry’s attention as he could get.

They weren’t attached. Not when they were cutting things so close.

 

\--------

 


	16. Chapter 16

They caught a nap with Barry slumped against the edge of Len’s bunk rather than disturb his newfound fun. It wasn't the most relaxing way to sleep but it was sleep. It was enough to get them out the door for breakfast an hour later. Barry distracted Len with a kiss as they stood waiting for the gate to open, so neither of them were quite focusing on reality when they got to the bar in front of their cell for count. When they were released to breakfast, Barry still leaned on the guardrail and yawned, looking somehow like a sleepy puppy and Len had to start walking before anybody saw him smile about it.

Neither of them paid attention to the part where Barry was bad at watching his own back. He had gotten spoiled by Len watching out for him. Someone pushed him and he took two more people down with him as he tumbled along the metal staircase. Len had caught the railing and didn’t go down, but he couldn’t figure out who had been the culprit, either. He was left to help the injured get back to their feet before the crowd walked over them.

It only got worse as they waited in line for food. The kitchen was minded by trustees with Prison Industries but they were still cons like everybody else in line. So when there was tension in the air, the kitchen wasn't immune. Everyone talked to somebody in kitchen detail, either they had a friend they bullshitted with in line or they knew somebody who knew somebody. Pots and pans was a messy gig but it was easier than yard work or laundry. And when somebody wanted to cause trouble, the best place to start was with anybody in PI. And slowing down the mealtime for a hundred or so convicts was pretty much the best way to guarantee a bunch of pissed off inmates.

Somebody in the kitchen slowed down breakfast by five whole minutes, which somehow for the folks at the back of the line meant an extra half an hour in line. It meant there were a lot of pissed off inmates in the yard.

For Len, it meant something was brewing. The tension that had shut down the gym had built and threatened the day to day peace of life on the block. Trouble was coming. It added a little adrenaline to the blood and Len was energized. He kept an eye out for trouble after that. There would be signs. He needed to know who the players to watch for would be.

Caution said to keep Barry under wraps; he had already been targeted, there was no sense provoking the mob. The flip side to that coin was that Barry wouldn't fix anything by hiding. It would just keep building. They found the middle territory and parked on the benches in the yard for awhile, just to keep up appearances.

“So this is what it feels like to be sitting on a powder keg,” Barry muttered. Len quirked an eyebrow, the dangerous smile on his face.

“All we need now is a match,” he replied. His thoughts were on obtaining a weapon. Barry caught his elbow to catch that line of thought before it chased Len off anywhere.

“No. No, we do not need a match. We need the Non-Smoking section,” said Barry quickly. Len let it go with a nod and kept his morning business quiet. Barry kept the hood of his jacket up and fidgeted like a kindergartener on the lower bench next to Len’s knee.

Miraculously there was no fight in the yard after breakfast. Barry started to relax on the walk back inside but Len was still on edge. It wasn't until they got inside the cellblock and started for the line up to the stairs that the warning signs started up again. Everyone started shoving each other, jumbling up confusion as convicts rubbed shoulders with guards and the guards took offense.

It had started. The last chance Len would ever get was being chaotically and conveniently presented to him. Len needed to get his hands on a weapon before they did anything but he still had his scarlet shadow to deal with, too. Barry caught Len’s arm so the two of them could shove through as a stronger unit. They got seperated when someone ahead of them pushed backward, crashing between them. Len got caught in the knee and fell backwards with the convict that had hit him.

When he looked up, Barry was out of the line, thrown out toward the center of the cellblock and behind the first line of guards. His sudden appearance behind the guards caused a ruckus with the officers, four of them moving out to herd Barry back in line. Somebody had used Barry as their distraction and it worked. Len scrabbled to his feet and tried to get out of the way as two of the guards were tackled to the floor by separate bands of convicts seizing on an opportunity. One opportunity like that lead to another opportunity and soon the lines had been abandoned as the center area usually reserved for the guards became a free-for-all brawl.

Len snuck into one of the shoving matches with a guard mostly just to watch. But he got in a few hits just to get close, just to steal the man’s gun. All the convicts had managed knives and shanks but Len didn't play by those rules; he didn't show up to a knife fight with anything less than a gun. Once he had one, he could pick and choose when he wanted to play. As the riot fights built up, Len and the stolen gun pulled back to the edges, staying to the safety of the sidelines. He had to start building his own team in the every-man-for-himself of guards against convicts.

When he looked for Barry, he saw his undercover speedster out in the thick of the fighting, a prime target trying to keep his head. He had retreated to take the guards’ side, unsurprisingly, and he was in the worst possible place. There was no way Len could get to him safely. He was going to need numbers to break up the knot of trouble Barry had found himself. The best Len could find to pull aside was Silver, looking lost and wide-eyed, the kind of crazy that could either work for them or against them.

“What do we do?” Silver shouted at Len among the noise.

“Stay alive!” Len shouted back. “We need friends. You got any?”

“Just you and Barry-”

“Barry’s not available at the moment,” Len muttered. He caught Silver by the arm to keep him close as they chanced charging through the fighting crowd. He mostly used Silver as a way of keeping anyone from noticing the gun at his side.

Alarms sounded as the prison went into lockdown. One of the guards finally managed to fire off a shot and half of those around the sound abandoned their fights to instead hit the deck. Len and Silver took cover behind the stairs. Convicts started crowding the stairs, some running away from the fights and others running toward them.

The worst possible outcome unfolded as they tried to sort out the chaos. The one officer who had fired off a shot was then surrounded by convicts ready to brawl, and convicts who had already brawled enough to steal the officers’ weapons, and those officers who hadn't yet lost their handguns had them trained on the convicts trying to engage them. It was a multilevel standoff.

A body in a blue jumpsuit fell from one of the narrow walkways in the upper floors of the cellblock, a new match lit on the remaining kegs of flammable material still waiting below. It crashed into one of the officers with a gun and there was a new round of fighting as convicts tried to disarm guards with renewed vengeance.

Off to the side, amidst the chaos, Len spotted Lewis Snart outside his cell. He looked like a man satisfied with himself. And he was allowed to be, given that Barry Allen was there in the middle of the court, getting his ass handed to him alongside the other cops. That was all Lewis had been after since the vault had gone sideways, it was all he cared about. He had his riot, he could enjoy it for a moment.

But Len had worked for this outcome, too. He had a gun in his hand and his father in the sight.

The fighting in the courtyard between the cells wasn't important to Len. It was just a means to an end. He felt the excitement, felt the adrenaline and the energy. He could absorb that without jumping into the fight. Barry had learned how to fend for himself so for once, for the first time in over a week, Len wasn't worried about him. His new friend wasn't even on the radar. Len moved to get a better shot on Lewis and avoided the fights entirely.

He had Lewis in range, in sight, and completely oblivious to the danger he was in. Lewis had his back to Len, too caught up watching Barry spar with some punk in defense of one of the guards. That was frustrating. Something wasn’t right and even though Len had a clear view, there was no way he could miss exactly what he aimed for, Len couldn't take the shot.

It wasn't right. Len couldn't make himself pull the trigger on Lewis’ back. He wasted precious seconds arguing with himself, feeling the gun fight him as he tried to make his finger squeeze the hammer of a gun, like he had so many times before in his life. But like everything else that had brought them here, Lewis Snart couldn't make any single damn thing easy for his son.

“Lewis!” he called out. He was frustrated and it was the only thing he could think to do. Make it right. Make certain his father knew what was coming his way to ruin whatever happiness he had found in building a riot in Iron Heights.

They weren't far apart, Lewis looked to see him when he heard his voice. The proud, beaming smile from the riot faded to confusion when he saw the gun in Len’s hand. Then there was a shadow of comprehension. Lewis squared his shoulders and turned to face him more directly.

“You don't have the balls to pull the trigger,” he said. There was an order to it. A command. The man expected to be obeyed and he hadn't even told Len to do anything.

That was normal. Len knew what to do with that. He readjusted his aim and pulled the trigger in two smooth movements. The report of the gun was lost under the noise of echoing gunfire in other places around the cellblock. People shouted and metal clanged and feet pounded across the metal catwalks over their heads, creating noise everywhere. Len just met his old man’s eyes as the pain of a single bullet finally registered through the static.

“So long, Pops,” Len said. Lewis stared down at the slow spot of red blooming across his blue jumpsuit front. Then he staggered to the wall near his cell, looking for support as things faded. Len dropped back further. They were separated by a pair of burly fighters who went crashing into a cell gate and Len turned away. He turned his back on his dying father and started scrubbing his dirty shirt over the warm metal of the gun in his hand. No prints. The gun was tossed out to the middle of the floor for someone else to find. He wouldn't stay in prison longer than he had to because of Lewis Snart. He had already served enough of his time. He wanted it to be over.

When Len got back to the stairs, Silver hadn't moved far, still watched in wide-eyed astonishment as gunshots echoed around the concrete and metal. A few others watched from the cover of the stairs, staying out of the way of the war zone the cellblock had become.

Most of the guards had fallen back before the big blast doors were locked and everything left inside was pure bloodlust run amok. Not all the convicts were fighting the guards, some were fighting to protect them. As they watched the guards struggle to defend themselves, Silver suddenly swore out loud, started getting antsy. Len looked over at him.

“Man, I got two years left on my bid. What the hell’s this gonna do to my ticket?” Silver asked. Len weighed it out a moment and then nodded. The kid had a point.

“Protect the bulls,” Len told him. He was annoyed but it was a solution. “Keep them safe and get time knocked off your sentence.”

“What? Are you shitting me!” Silver looked terrified. That was fair. Len shrugged at him in the face of it.

“Riots don't last very long,” Len said. He didn't give Silver much chance to think it over. He shoved him out from the cover of the stairs, toward the nearest fight with a guard in the middle of it. It wasn't an easy way to make friends, and it didn't guarantee time off for good behavior, but it was something to do besides cower under the stairs and wait for everything to blow over.

 

\----------

 

Bringing in a few recruits, Len and Silver managed to form a wall around two of the guards. The real danger from their effort was from trying to keep the guards from defending themselves against the ragtag group of men trying to defend them. They had to know that six guards were no match for some two hundred convicts but in an adrenaline spike, the pair Len had cornered to keep safe wouldn't slow down to realize that the threat wasn't from the convicts closest at hand. Len got a black eye trying to tell a guard to back off, but letting himself get hit went a long way toward convincing them that - at least for now - not all of the cons were trying to cause damage.

Len was in a weird space, on a strange sort of high from being free of Lewis Snart finally, but still strangely grounded from the knowledge of how he had earned that freedom. It was one of those things he figured would hit him later, when he wasn't in the middle of a riot, and he would self-analyze then. For now, he figured a guard hitting him in the face was probably fair in the grand scheme of the cosmos, for anyone who actually believed in that shit. Instead, he took the anger out on the next convict that looked at him cross and helped Silver and Carper keep the guards hidden under the stairs.

As he watched the unlucky convict run away from him, Len noticed the commotion by the central observation deck where the guards usually kept track of the prisoners. The windows were still blocked with metal grates anchored into the walls, but the convicts were making a racket trying to fix that problem, acting like a pack of rabid monkeys, hanging and jumping and clanging at the thick bars to loosen them. The noise was drawing the attention of the convicts who weren't embroiled in fights amongst themselves, slowly redirecting the focus of the chaos.

So much going on, so much noise, everything violent.

Meanwhile, smoke filled the air and random bursts of fire drifted down from the upper levels. Len watched some of the flaming toilet paper settle down to the polished concrete floor where it would burn itself out in another minute. If the genius with the lighter put more than a few seconds thought into it, they could have started a real fire that might have brought the riot to an end. They could have forced the doors open. But Len didn't point that out. He dropped back to help Carper again, hoping to wait out the force of the riot as the energy from the fights dwindled off.

At the same time, two guards still stuck in the center of the hall lost their fight to a crowd of convicts and were intentionally thrown to the floor. Len kept an eye on it but moved to defend the two he had already saved. Good behavior had a quota and he had more than met his already. The guards’ handcuffs were pulled from their belts, along with their keys and anything else remotely useful; the sidearms were long gone, in the hands of gloating convicts about to use them to put bullets in the guards’ heads.

That part, admittedly, was less than ideal. And it wasn't Len’s problem. The guards were Barry’s people, not his. There was still that nagging annoying fact that the guards were Barry’s people. And Barry, technically, was still Len’s to worry about. He would have an opinion on the guards in trouble. Len started searching the crowd, looking for signs of his missing speedster.

When he found him, Len had to pull back on an unexpected rage. Barry was the one on the wrong end of a gun, half supporting another guard’s dead weight across the room.

“Snart!” Barry called out then, like somehow he knew Len was paying attention. “We had a deal!”

And they did have a deal. They had a couple of them, lately, which complicated things further. Barry’s people weren’t Len’s to worry about, but nobody was supposed to die. And, in particular, Barry Allen was off limits. Len had more or less made that agreement with the cosmos in general, whether the cosmos were aware of it or not. Considering Len had broken the deal by putting his father down like the mongrel he was, it only made sense that Barry was now on the wrong end of somebody else’s gun. Karma, not that he believed in it, was a fickle bitch.

_Fine_.

Presented with a new puzzle - how to untangle himself and Barry from a clusterfuck of his own design, without losing any more human lives - Len considered the scene in front of him. He had few options. But he did have two security guards that looked just like the two in the center of the line up quad, just a lot healthier. The best way to launder money was to mix it up with the clean stuff, move it around, end up with more than what was put in. So Len realized he needed to mix up the pig blood a little. He turned around to see the scuffle between Carper and the guard he was trying to convince to sit still. Len grabbed the guard by the useful loops on his uniform shoulders and hauled him away from Carper.

“Let's go _save_ your friends,” Len told him. “Should be _fun_.”

Silver was predictably, terminally, confused. “Len? What the hell-”

“Bring the other one, too,” Len ordered. He kept the guard on the march toward the others, shoved him down on his knees, like the other two. When Silver and Carper hauled up the other, Len shoved him in with the other guards, too. Four guards knelt in the center of the hall, just waiting for a convict with an itchy trigger finger to take them out.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Len demanded of the gloating cons laughing and playing with the guns around the guards on the floor. Even standing close to the other con, he had to yell to be heard over the noise echoing around the cellblock. The men pointed back toward the control room. Someone had managed to pull back a corner of the steel grate over one of the windows.

“Getting the fuck outta here before long,” came the reply.

“You’re gonna need them then,” said Len. He pointed at the guards at their feet. “All of the bulls. They don't just let you walk. It takes work.”

“I don't fuckin’ care, I’ve got the gun!”

“And they've got full artillery lined up outside those gates, dumbass,” returned Len. He was angry now, insulted by the man’s willful ignorance. “I've broken out of more supermax than you've ever seen and you’re gonna tell me you can just walk down the hall with a damn semi-automatic and take on the National Guard?”

That seemed to get through. One of the cons started trying to stretch his mind and grow into some logic.

“I mean, he's right, man. They gonna blow us shit off the planet without them. If they alive, they a shield,” said one.

“So we kill ‘em on the outside then. We get out, we get a truck, we dump them. No rush,” said another.

“It gon’be time before somebody gets those doors, man. We got time.”

The convict with the gun looked unhappy but seemed to back off the trigger. Just enough. Len nodded his encouragement. Then he pointed over at where Barry stood, holding up another of the guards ten feet away.

“And we’re gonna need him, too. Cops are as good as the guards.”

“Nuhuh, I got him. The fuck should I let these assholes put a bullet in him?” Barry’s captor shouted back. The gun was jammed into his shoulder as he was tugged closer. “You can have the bulls. I got plans.”

Given the rather public claim Len had on his cellmate, that went over with a laugh. The group of rioters lazily guarding their prisoners while the rest caused wanton destruction looked to Len, smug, as the man with the plans was deprived of his apparently favorite prison yard bitch. Barry set his jaw and paid attention to the location of the gun muzzle that wandered freely between his shoulder and his neck. Somehow it only made the bad day more surreal. And Len more angry.

The argument ended when Len grabbed the gun from the distracted convict near him and walked the few steps between them to put it to the forehead of the gunman being openly lecherous to Barry. It was so unexpected that none of them really had time to move. Even Barry jumped, nearly dropping his hold on the injured guard he was handcuffed to. Len didn’t notice, his angry glare on the man he looked seconds from killing.

“Fine. How badly d’you want your plans to work out then?”

The man didn’t have a handy answer to that suddenly. Len feinted stepping in to punch him with the butt of the gun and when the man ducked, he reached over and caught the gun that was trained on Barry. He took possession of yet another weapon and backed off out of reach. One weapon was handed off to Silver - he was young, impressionable, and stupid, so Len trusted him more than Carper- and the other was pointed at Barry. “Get them in the center of the floor with the others.”

The threat didn’t actually work on Barry; he had been on the other end of guns manned by Leonard Snart too many times and the odds were so far in his favor. There was an odd, completely foreign thrill then when Len saw Barry actually help the barely-alive guard to his feet. The Scarlet Speedster of Central City had just done something because Len had ordered him to. There was power there and the gun had nothing to do with it. Len watched as Barry led the two guards to kneel with the others inside the circle of leering convicts. There were a lot of things Len wanted to do in that moment, and it was very difficult to remind himself that there was a riot in the way of all of them.

\----


	17. Chapter 17

The effort to overtake the control room didn't go as planned. It took longer. Hours longer. The power was cut out, the only light in the place being the huge skylights in the ceiling. It felt like the air conditioning had been cut before the power, so everything was not only unnaturally hot, it was humid and sweaty. The rage from the riot quieted some as it got on toward dinner and everyone was still locked inside the block. The bad attitudes and the anger got louder while the energy level of the rioters lowered.

Len, however, was still very aware of his bad attitude. It was a potential problem for him and he knew it. The common term for it leaned toward _bloodlust_ and it was the kind of thing that ruined well-laid plans. Len was somewhere between wanting to maintain plans he had been carefully cultivating for over a week, and giving in to the mood that would ruin them. Everyone else had run amok, had fought and worn themselves out, but Len was still stuck with an itch he couldn’t scratch.

All around him were men who were cranky and tired, complaining of being hungry, of the air being too hot. It was dank and smelled, and people had actually died there on the cement floor. The cellblock was miserable, except for the group who still fought so energetically to break the grating over the observation office windows. That noise pollution just got on everyone’s nerves and amplified every other annoyance, but nobody told them to stop. Their racket was probably the only thing keeping the riot alive, keeping the prison guards out. It was still a powder-keg waiting to go off, but the fuse had gotten so short that no one knew exactly where it was because there were a dozen other barrels piled on top. It was a dangerous place to be for everyone, convict or guard.

And Len was obnoxiously focused on Barry. The most harmless human in the room. With very little effort, the man could have his entire attention, and Len had to pretend he didn’t. He had to pace, with a gun in his hand, and fight to keep himself focused on keeping the control of the group that he had managed to win over. He couldn’t get his hands on Barry and drag him off to a locked room. It was the middle of a riot. There were priorities, even if the lizard part of his brain very much disagreed. Somehow the most harmless man in the room was the most dangerous one to Len and his objectives in life.

From what Len could tell, Barry was starving and cranky, on top of angry. And he had been sitting still too long. He was still handcuffed to a barely conscious prison guard, which didn't leave a lot of room for movement. He was covered in blood from supporting the guard up close, in shared space. Len was waiting for him to spark somebody, for someone to complain and for the kid to have to explain how he was covered in blood and not injured like everybody else. But he was thankfully smarter than that.

Fidgeting and starting to spark on the handcuffs, Barry tried to stand up and Len was ready for it. He smacked the back of his head to order him back down. It was half-reflex and half-anger that had Barry smacking back at whatever he could reach of him in return. And for Len, it was the invitation he had been waiting for. Something to act on.

He caught Barry by a handful of his curly hair and dragged him into his leg. It didn't actually hurt as much as it should have, which surprised Len more than he would admit; he had a rare opportunity to hurt, to get away with it, because it was what everyone around him expected and Barry wouldn't fight him. But Len feigned the roughhousing, made it look good but had no force to it. Maybe he had control for once, but it was still _Barry_ he had control over. The same Barry who Len had followed into the prison expecting to protect.

The convicts around them laughed, dark and bitter and dismissive of Barry’s awkward self defense. They had started a scene. So Len pushed his own tolerance a little more, tugged on Barry again to pull him up for a kiss. In front of guards and convicts alike, which the logical part of his brain warned him would follow him around. The other part of his brain didn't give a damn, only felt a hard burst of power.

Barry tolerated the pulling and wiped off the kiss into his shoulder when he was released. Len caught his arm then and pulled to get him to stand up. When Barry rolled his arm to dodge, he held up his other arm to show the cuffs.  
That put a kink in Len’s plans and he had to think about it. He had to slow down, think with his brain again and not the rest of him. He had a gun and a bullet was easier than finding a key. It made a statement, too, and Len wanted to be just crazy enough to keep everyone else away. Decision made, he shoved Barry back to the ground, pinning his wrist under under his shoe and the cuffs over the drain that ran along the center of the hall.

“What the-” The report of another gunshot echoed under the rattling of the men still trying to break into the control room. The guards all ducked and nobody moved to help Barry or the guard he was handcuffed to. Len, meanwhile, hit exactly what he was aiming for and the chain was damaged enough to pull apart. With a fistful of Barry’s bloody shirt, Len pulled him up and away.

Barry had to scramble to his feet on the move, a few of the rioters offering up catcalls and loud cheers as just that little extra incentive. From their perspective, Barry was about to have a bad time. Len couldn't convince himself that they were wrong as he shoved Barry into a cell that had been roughed up so badly it had lost the front gate. The cell’s usual occupants preferred their privacy and had rigged up a semi permanent sheet behind the broken bars, held in place by the sprinkler system and creative knot work, tucked out of the way during the day. Len pulled the corner down from the bunk as they moved inside so there was at least a little privacy. With the lights off in the cellblock it was dark but there were no guarantees.

“Don't touch the gun,” Len ordered as he tucked it up on a shelf. Even the speedster had no time to reach for it anyway. A heartbeat later Len shoved him roughly up against the wall, trapped him there with his body and held his hands pinned. Both of them knew Barry could have slipped free without hardly trying but in that moment the illusion sure as hell worked for Len.

“What the hell is going on-” Barry’s whispered question was silenced with another rough kiss and he let out a strangled squawk in protest. Len hissed at him to shut up.

“How fast can you get out of here and get back?” Len asked, a hurried whisper in his ear. Barry caught on and struggled against him to angle himself further away from the view of those in the center of the hall.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. Len had to work to process Barry’s question because what Len was thinking and what his body was thinking were entirely different things. He grabbed the first coherent thought that seemed usable.

“Explosives?”

“I was thinking more like _backup_?” Barry whispered back at him. “Thirty seconds, maybe.”

Thirty seconds? Thirty fucking seconds? They had been locked in a riot all day and he only needed thirty seconds? There were some amazing things Len could get used to and then there was _that_ ; the realization that Barry was _voluntarily_ wasting time in a _riot_ put Len’s small leverage to shame. He had a gun, but Barry had _time_. Whatever power trip had gone to his head faded out as Len processed the promised thirty seconds.

“We don't got all day, Baer.” Len touched his forehead to Barry’s, hiding the small grin behind a more careful kiss. When Len eased back half a step, Barry let out a ragged breath. He started to amp up to phase through the wall when there was an ear-splitting, cracking noise from the direction of the control room. It was immediately followed by a racket of cheering and the sound of a small stampede on the concrete.

“Shit,” they both said under their breath. Whatever window they had for distraction disappeared with that noise. Barry stilled and Len caught his arm. He messed up Barry’s hair and tried to twist up his bloody shirt a little, rumple him up. The both of them were bloody now, sufficiently mussed. They had an act to keep up if they were going to deal with the keepers of the guards. Then Len collected the gun again and dragged Barry from the cell.

“Two _fucking_ seconds, man,” Len complained loudly. He didn't need to bother with the theatrics, everyone was too focused on the stream of prisoners climbing through the broken window to notice. Within a minute all of the cell gates were let out of lock down - except the broken one behind Barry - and the doors to the hall opened. Len tugged Barry closer, shoved him toward the guards. The injured men were getting to their feet, not wanting trampled as more prisoners rushed out into the confusion.

“Let's go!” said one of the convicts babysitting the guards. He grabbed one by the arm, further tearing a torn uniform as the injured man tried to avoid getting rushed out.

“We wait!” Len countered. He pointed to the crowd of men clogging the door in their hurry to leave. “Unless you want to get shot at like they will. Otherwise, you leave with me and the bulls and we head for the library. I can get us out from there.”

“The library?!”

“It's how I got out last time,” said Len. It was a challenge, a dare for someone to call bullshit. No one did.

And that was how Len took control of twenty riotous prisoners and their hostages. Just like that. All it took was one man with a plan. That was still power.

In the confusion created by men running for the doors, Barry took off running. Not the Flash, just Barry Allen, risking his neck to disappear into a crowd. It caused a scuffle among the crew of misfits and hostages, but Len was pretty sure he could handle it.

There was a dust-up with two of the able bodied guards and then a shouting match to interrupt over all the other noise. Len wanted badly to shoot the idiot convict that started it but he refrained. The point in this exercise was to play the Good Samaritan, to win all the extra bonus points with the guards and maybe the judge in a few days. That meant no shooting anyone else.

There was, strangely, only a fleeting thought that maybe Barry wouldn't hold to his word. A second of concern that Barry had just run off and would not be back with reinforcements. It didn't survive long as Len angrily shoved a convict out of his space and away from the guards.

“So, what, we just supposed to wait for the shooting to start?” the man yelled at him. Len didn't bother to answer him. As it happened, he didn't have to.

The shooting started. Or at least, it sounded like it. Instead, it was a violently high-pitched scream and the shattering of glass. Seconds later, the glass scattered across the concrete floor not far away. Thankfully the only body it landed on was already dead.

As the glass shattered and fell, a length of rope dropped down with it. And then a familiar corporeal shadow slid down, carrying Barry around the ribs like a bag of dog chow. Len watched Barry take the landing hard and stumble and fall away, half pushed toward the guards he had run away from hardly minutes earlier. He scuffed his jaw on the cement when he tripped and shot an annoyed look back at the Green Arrow. Barry kept abusive friends, Len realized, which somehow made him feel better about his own life choices. The man in the green hood already had his bow out and aimed at the nearest thug with the gun.

“Looks like you lost one of your crew,” the roughly disguised voice of Barry’s shadowy friend growled out at the group. “Or was he a _hostage_?”

The hostage part was a good idea and Len had an image to worry about. He moved forward to collect Barry before one of the others could. It also cleared up the archer’s line of sight on the other convicts with stolen guns. Green Arrow paid more attention to the part where Len stood behind Barry and held a gun to his ribs. Barry leaned back just enough to guard Len like a _voluntary_ shield, like he wanted to be sure he knew where Len was. It was distracting when Len’s adrenaline was up.

“Anyone who wants to run on and join their friends in trying to beat down the gates is free to go,” said the Green Arrow. “You can see the doors are still open. But the guns and the guards stay with me.”

“Yo, Greenball, why we gotta listen to you?” piped up Silver. “There's six guns to your little bow and arrow bullshit. Bullets win.”

From the shadows of the walkway along the cells, another dark shape moved out toward the group. Barry ducked forward, shoving Len back, closed his hands over his ears as a warning to the other hostages. Len caught the hint and mirrored him.

“Woah, nice outfit,” said Silver, appreciating the woman for the black leather and not the level of danger she posed. When no one showed signs of heeding the Green Arrow’s advice, the woman in black leather took a fighter’s stance and let out another disabling scream. Every one of the standing convicts doubled over in pain. Len ducked his head between his arms and half turned away behind Barry to hide from the violent noise.

Amid the distraction, he felt Barry shove away from him. Before he could even fully recover from the echoing screech of the Black Canary, he felt the gun tugged from his hand. Barry stood behind him and kneed him in the back of the thigh, shoving him to the ground. He had a hand at the back of Len’s neck and held him upright with a gun at his shoulder. Fair was fair. Len kept his hands at the back of his head in case he would need to keep his poor ears sheltered from the threat of the woman’s cry. Barry slid his thumb under Len’s palm, held their hands together in one place.

This, he felt, was an acceptable plan. It wasn't hard to work up a scowl, though, because his ears still felt like they were bleeding. Len didn't really like Barry’s friends, he decided.

At the same time, the Green Arrow adjusted his aim on the bow and let an arrow fly. It hit the locked door of the exit that led directly out to the yard. The double doors erupted into flame at the small explosion, the shock of it blowing open the lock and letting the doors swing open. More painful noise. Len _really_ didn't like them.

When he looked back to the Star City vigilantes Barry had gone to for help, another arrow was nocked and ready to fly.  
“There’s your way out,” the Green Arrow told them. “I suggest you run.”

That was enough for Barry. He left Len kneeling and unattended as he dropped the stolen handgun at the marksman’s feet, tried to stay out of the line of sight of an arrow as he moved to help the injured guard. The man had lost a lot of blood and he seemed to hurt plenty, but he welcomed the assist. Barry and the guard cut through the fifteen convicts still trying to sort out their options. The other five officers followed or ran on ahead.

Len looked around at the chaos as the convicts tried to figure out if they wanted to take the easy way out the explosion had given them, or if they wanted to take the anonymity of running the other way. They had just held their prison guards at gunpoint for hours, and that wouldn't go over well.

Strangely, the two vigilantes had completely disappeared. As had the stash of guns that Barry had dumped at their feet. Despite the gun with his fingerprints all over it probably on its way to an evidence locker, Len decided to gamble on Barry. Again.

He hit the night and the sirens got louder. The spotlight from the tower swung to the group of officers which made them easier for Len to follow. Over the sound of the alarms all around the yards, a megaphone ordered their hands in the air. But they were outside. They were safe. There was fresh air and a cool breeze instead of the stifling sweatbox of the cellblock. At the grass, Barry helped the injured officer to his knees like the guns in the tower were demanding.

Len lined up right beside him, tried to act like he belonged there side by side with the good guys. When Barry glanced over at him, Len caught his wrist - the one that didn't already have the busted handcuff chain attached - and trapped them together with another set of stolen handcuffs. Just in case someone decided to separate them without talking to their fellow cop first; Len was gambling that Barry’s word was worth more than his. It seemed to amuse Barry anyway.

The group was collected, searched, separated from the company of the injured guards. Nobody seemed to notice that two of their prisoners were already attached, they were more worried about the blood everywhere. Len tried to follow Barry’s lead, figuring that if _he_ was stuck in Rome he might as well pretend to be a Roman, too. Barry did more arguing with the guardsmen than he did, which was a surprising point of personal pride.

Nobody bothered to separate him and Barry, the prevailing wisdom apparently siding with Len’s logic that if one was a good guy, the other must be, too. That would probably change if they stuck around long enough for the prison guards to make their reports of events, but Len at least wasn’t worried about it for the moment.

Barry and Len, covered in blood as they were, were eventually loaded into the back of a cop car, bound back to the Central City police department for holding there. The prison would take hours if not days to settle out and Len didn't mind leaving it far behind. He had been there too long, and riots were loud, and hot, and disgusting, and messy.

In the back of an air conditioned police cruiser, however, Len started to realize that the riot had served its purpose. Maybe not the one that his father had intended when he started actively arranging for the various explosions that set it all off, but it had taken care of the old, long overdue business that Len had never had the guts to take care of before. He was no saint, he probably deserved every minute he had ever spent in jail in his life. But it started to settle in that the man who was the reason _why_ would never have another minute’s control over his life again. There was a certain freedom in that. The back of a cop car, bound for another lock up, was a weird place to experience that feeling for the first time.

Beside him, Barry slumped against the bench like he was tired. He was covered in blood but he was fine; unlike Len’s, none of his bruises and cuts would stick. The scrape from when he had fallen from the skylight with the vigilante was already long gone, Len noticed. He shook his head. Somehow, the kid was charmed. Made of Teflon and wrapped in wool so he could still be soft on the edges. And he had the whole half of the bench but he still sat crammed up against Len’s side without either of them realizing it.

Seeing his friend nodding off, Leonard Snart offered a shoulder as a pillow on the hard, uncomfortable back seat of a police transport.

 

\---


	18. Chapter 18

Any prisoner from C-block with court appointments was - once reprocessed and interviewed about the riot - transferred to the county or city lock-up with their case. For Barry and Len, that meant they got to stay at Central City PD once again. They got the same corner cell with the bunks and the semi-private bathroom stall. High-class accommodations that Barry said he would never take for granted again after a week at Iron Heights. 

When they were locked up in a cell again - handcuff free - Barry collapsed onto the bottom bunk, like Len had seen him do only a couple of times before. The bottom bunk was his territory, not Barry’s, and that didn't change just because the bunk was a different color in a different prison. It wasn't like they could share in the city lockup like they had in Iron Heights. But Len was too tired to sort him out on it, just sat down at the foot of it and shoved Barry’s shoes out of his way.

“We left the makeup in the vent,” Barry announced randomly, eyes closed and voice slurred with sleep.

“Yeah,” replied Len. “And your face is melting again.”

But Barry didn't do anything about it. He slept. Len sat at the end of the bed and stared at the wall, tired but wired and awake more than he liked. He didn't like Iron Heights, but he liked their current accommodations somehow even less. 

It meant an end and he knew it. He had prepared for it, he had warned Barry not to get attached, and they weren't. But they made a good team. Len had seen Barry in action from the same side for once, rather than fighting the Flash or kicking off some bossy kid messing with his plans. And Len was maybe a little more attached than he was prepared to admit, because now he knew what he was going to lose.

He remembered the last time he stared at the city jail’s walls. Barry had been in one of the center cells and talked to his friends like there was no one else in the room, probably hadn't known Len was in a far corner at all. Len remembered the voices and shook his head; Barry’s famous friend from Star City sounded a lot like the Star City vigilante that Barry had gone to for help earlier that day. And his lively lawyer probably looked damn good in black leather, too. They were the good guys. Len would not fit in. 

Outside of barred boxes, Len and Barry were not friends and whatever draw to each other they had that kept putting Barry in Len’s face could not survive. It took Barry a week to try anything on the inside, maybe it was just curiosity, or maybe it was just his way of fitting in. Prison messed with people’s heads, maybe all Len knew of Barry was some fucked up survival mode brought out by Iron Heights and not enough sleep. There was something to be said for instinct, Len trusted it, but the real, civilized world required more than that.

At the end of the day, after a riot, too many fights, too many cops, not enough food... Len knew he was tired. But he also realized he had let himself become very attached to something that couldn't be real.

Not sure what to do with the inescapable realization, Len found himself pacing in front of the bunks. After awhile, he moved to lean on the bars, wishing he could steal Barry’s trick of walking through walls and just walk away. Be done with it all. Get away from Barry and the good guys and the cops and the prison and go back to life as he knew it, hustling up work and scraping by between scores. That was real, he knew what to expect from that. Where he was now, behind bars, a day away from Barry’s hearing, Len didn't know what came next. Without Lewis, there was no way the judge would put Barry back in Iron Heights. Len had promised to keep Barry safe in the prison, and he had promised to testify in exchange for that prized Get Out of Jail Free pass.

Maybe Len had a loose moral code, but he was still his own man. He kept his promises because a promise was a choice he had made for himself, it wasn't at the whim of somebody pulling his strings. A trade was a trade, if there was something to steal he could take it, and he worked with what he had in front of him. Testify to get Barry out of going to trial and one way or another, the Flash or his friends would keep Len from seeing the inside of Iron Heights for the crime of he trying to save his baby sister. That was the arrangement and promise Len had made. It would be honored. And Barry would be gone.

Len just had to get used to it. He had a day to back off and get his mind to stop worrying about Barry. He had trained himself to do it in the first place, so he could make himself stop eventually too.

Exhaustion eventually won out and Len moved back to the bunk. He couldn't share it, the temptation to make Barry give him half of the bunk would probably take over, and he refused to take the top bunk. So he sat down on the floor, his back to the private little wall that kept the bunks from the toilet, and rested his head against the raised mattress. He could hear Barry breathing, knew he was close, and knew he was out of reach. Len had kept up his end of the bargain, even if he had gone about it in his usual risky way, and Barry was safe. He could rest, even if his mind didn't want to let him sleep.

Damned Barry was still asleep when he curled his hand over the edge of the bed and rested it on the top of Len’s fuzzy head. He didn't move, just kept him close. Len ducked the touch and Barry grumbled, reached again. Len trapped his hand against the mattress just to make him stop. 

“Stay here,” Barry muttered at him, hardly comprehensible and probably still asleep. Len bowed his head, stared at the floor at the end of his shoes. 

_ Goddamnit, Barry. _

\----

Daylight crept in through the narrow windows along the ceiling by the time Barry Allen woke up. 

In contrast to Barry who slept the sleep of the dead, innocent and deserving of rest after good deeds well done, Len didn’t do much better than nap. He had lost track of time, fading in and out. His brain was busy, reminding him of the damage he had helped bring about, of the lives lost in a riot, of the poor excuse he had relied on for bringing it about. He had given his word to protect Barry, and it was just a matter of pride, after all, there was no personal gain likely to come from it. None beyond a brief trip to city lockup instead of Iron Heights a few days early, anyway. His brain looped on Jack’s laughter as it mulled over the reminders; poor planning, high expense, minimal returns, and he had gotten attached. 

Len got attached and couldn’t do anything about it without breaking his word, and his pride wouldn’t let him. But it had no problem letting him sleep sitting up on a cold concrete floor just to have a shadow of closeness with Barry.

So it was that Barry opened his eyes to find his hand curled over the edge of the bed and Len slouched against the bunk bed frame with the mattress and Barry’s fingers as a pillow. 

Barry brushed the back of his fingers over warm skin and fuzzy hair just longer than Len’s usual because of the week on the block. Len peeked up over the edge of the mattress at him. Barry grinned and rubbed at the top of his head, not unlike what Len had done to him a few mornings earlier.

“For luck,” Barry said. Len rolled his eyes. He started pulling himself up off the floor.

“Shove over,” he said, not exactly an order and more like a warning. Barry was awake, so they could share space without starting rumors around the precinct. Barry sat up and edged toward the foot of the bed. A moment later, Len sat beside him, the both of them leaned against the wall behind the bunk, their legs sprawled off the front edge of the mattress. Len’s shoulder tucked up against Barry’s, their legs pressed into each other’s space. It was somehow even then a silent competition to find out who could take up the most of the other’s space. Barry glanced over at him, apparently amused by the game. Len stared at the mattress above them, pretended not to notice.

“Why didn’t you sleep?” Barry asked. Len shrugged, not about to answer honestly.

“Too much noise,” he said instead. Barry looked around at their quiet neighbors, some of them camped out four men to a cell in the center with no more than a single bench to share. Riots really took the energy out of people, and there wasn’t a lot of noise left in the room now. Barry’s stomach grumbles like he was hungry, just in time to offer distraction from the lie.

“Too bad this place didn’t come with a kitchen,” Len observed. Barry grinned and nodded. They’d be fed before too long but he didn’t figure he had to point that out. Everyone was still asleep. Barry leaned into Len’s side a little heavier, his hand dangerously close to Len’s thigh. They were all but alone, monitored in public, and the knowledge that they couldn’t share any more space than they already did weighed heavy on them both.

Poking at a hole that had torn in his blue uniform pants, Barry frowned. Len nodded in silent agreement. It seemed they both suddenly missed Iron Heights.

_ Crap _ .

\--------

A few hours later, after the occupants of the Central City lockup had been provided a tiny breakfast, Joe West showed up at the gate of the cell, with Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance as his shadows. Len saw nothing but judgement on Barry’s friends faces, like they had seen it before, but his dad looked like he was going to have a heart attack. Barry had cleaned up a little in the sink against the wall of the cell but without soap, what was left of the makeup-bruises looked more like dirt. His white shirt and pants were covered in someone else’s blood and his hair stuck up at odd angles like maybe he had streaked blood in it, too. The speedy Boy Wonder was a mess and his family was unprepared for the reality. Barry left Len at the bunk and met Joe at the gate, hands up to forestall the worst of it.

“I’m okay, Joe, I promise...” he said quickly. It didn’t seem to convince him and Joe reached in through the bars to catch Barry by the shoulder, tug him close enough to feel up over his neck and mess up his hair.

“Jesus, Baer. What the hell happened,” he said. 

Len scowled a little despite himself, jealous and feeling the pang of something like mourning. His father had never shown care like that, only anger. Just one more proof that life wasn't fair, karma rubbing his nose in it.

“Annual prison bake-sale,” offered Len from over Barry’s shoulder. At least Barry seemed amused by the bitter sarcasm.

“Would you believe a prison bake-sale?” he asked.

“Ha,” said Joe, not at all amused. “I guess I gotta go home and get you a suit after all. You can't go into court like this.”

The news was a surprise and Len looked to the floor as he heard Barry ask, “That's today?”

Laurel the lawyer nodded. She was still looking him over. She looked past him at where Len still sulked on the lower bunk. He looked a little less messed up, since most of the blood on his clothes had come from brushing up against the blood on Barry’s. He had been in his share of fights during the riot though, and there was a bruise on one side of his face, some blood in the collar of his white shirt that he hadn't fessed up to where it came from. The proof of the long day the day before was all over them.

“I don't think you should change just yet,” Laurel decided. Joe seemed personally offended.

“I didn't raise my boy to disrespect the courts-”

“No, but the weight behind our entire argument is that Barry doesn't belong behind bars,” the lawyer said. She waved to Barry’s general state of disarray. “This is just more proof of that. The judge will have to think real hard about making him sit there for long when this is what happens in just a few days.”

Then came more fussing, Joe West treating his grown and fully capable son like a child. Behind Barry, safe out of sight on the bunk, Len rolled his eyes unnoticed. There was a lot going on in his head just then. For the first time in a long time, he felt surprised, felt that everything around him was out of control. There was no plan suddenly. At least, not any plan he wanted to commit to. Nothing he wanted to fall back on when Plan A went sideways. Len was stuck in a particular kind of hell, of his own design, listening to Barry talk strategy in hushed tones in a crowded police lock-up. Barry had the plans now, thought up and arranged by his friends. And Len really didn’t factor into them at all.

———

Somewhere around nine AM, Barry was escorted out by his former coworkers, bound for the courthouse. He hesitated at the cell gate, looked from the uncertainty of the outside back to the known quantity left behind on the bottom bunk. For all Barry was a mess, rumpled and abused looking even though Len knew for a fact there wasn’t a bruise on him, the most telling was his face. He looked worried. There was shame in the slump of his shoulders as the uniformed officer cinched metal cuffs on his wrists. The dirty prison garb was just an ill-fitting costume on Barry. It wasn’t his. He didn’t belong in it. And Barry looked to Len like he was lost.

There was, maybe, something in the world that Barry Allen wasn’t prepared to face with that savvy curiosity and lopsided grin. He was, for one reason or another, afraid of a judge. Maybe a little foggy from lack of sleep, Len let himself believe, for just a few seconds, that Barry was worried the judge would cut him loose and their romps behind the sheet would be over. It was enough to make Len smile, smug and amused, for long enough to be seen. Barry smiled back. As if that was the blessing he had been waiting for, Barry left the cell then. He didn’t see Len’s smile fade. Len looked away to stare at the pillow Barry had left behind instead.

Not long later, Barry’s friends showed up at the locked cell. Just the lawyer and the rich brat. Len fought off the annoyance of the insult of their existence. When he felt he could sufficiently hide behind the usual masks, no speedster around to poke holes in them, he stood up to meet their silent summons at the gate.

“We had an agreement before all this happened,” Laurel Lance pointed out. “Are you still willing to set the record straight in all of this? Or do I need to go with Plan B?”

Len couldn’t help but smile at that. “Does  _ Plan B  _ happen to involve black leather and screaming? Because, while I’m hardly a legal professional, I’m willing to bet that could get  _ awkward  _ in a courtroom.”

Oliver Queen leaned on the bars then, perfectly comfortable and yet obviously annoyed. “Plan B involves exploiting the work of a team of hackers and reminding the courts that the internet keeps backups. Which  _ might  _ get a little  _ messy  _ when they get around to  _ you _ .”

“Last I checked, intimidating a  _ witness  _ was on the naughty list,” Len replied. “And  _ Christmas  _ isn’t that far away.”

“Okay, knock it off,” said Laurel. She crossed her arms around a Manila File folder and briefcase. “Ignore Oliver, Mr. Snart. I’m asking about  _ Barry _ . Will you help him or not?”

Len sighed, stared up at the ceiling. He had already put a lot of work into helping Barry. It wouldn’t do him any good to convince his friends of that. Annoyance in check, he looked back to Barry’s friends.

“It was just a riot, and I’ve seen those before,” he pointed out. “My answer hasn’t changed.”

 

——-

 

The courtroom, all wood paneling and pretentiousness, was still and quiet when Len was brought in. Behind the defendant's table, Barry was waiting, in a state of something that looked like shock. Anyone looking on could see that Len still looked rough, still dirty, bruised, and in bloody clothes like Barry. Left overs from the riot that could play to the defendant’s advantage. Even the criminal was getting to rack up the sympathy points with the judge as he was escorted in from the back of the courtroom. 

Leonard Snart, son of a dirty cop, known and convicted criminal with no remaining record to his name, was even sworn in at the witness stand. All the same, Len did not look happy to be there. The defendant stared at him, struck silent but jaw working like he had much to confess that wouldn’t be useful to his own case. As his knee bounced from nerves, Barry tried to weigh it down with his manacled hands as a minor distraction.

The judge was an odd old duck, very hands-on with his cases apparently, because he wanted to talk to his criminal witness personally.

“Mr. Snart, I’ve been told you wish to revise the statement you gave to the Central City Police Detectives after your arrest. Is this correct?” the judge asked. The expression on the witness’s face then was irritated. He wasn’t great at looking at the judge, a complete contrast to the social skillset indicated by what Len did for a living. Len looked up at Laurel briefly, just long enough to accidentally look at Barry. They stared at each other for a heartbeat before Len found whatever resolve he was looking for. He turned his attention to the judge then.

“Yes, sir,” Len said, voice firm. His voice was a little higher, nasally, sounding defensive to anyone who knew him. As the only person in the room who cared to know Snart, Barry was going to drive himself crazy, listening for the lie, looking for the warning signs of the convict’s acting. 

“What would you like the record to show?” asked the judge. Len’s attention dropped back down to his hands behind the witness box. He took a moment, then sat up a little straighter in his seat.

“My sister and I went to Barry for help,” Len told him. Barry visibly deflated a little as he heard the lie. Len was under oath, and the first words out of his mouth were lies. It looked like it stung a little but Barry didn’t say anything. He just listened as the man continued on.

“Lewis Snart had implanted an explosive device in my sister’s neck and, if I didn't help him with the heist, he would kill her. He had already killed an associate of his that way and I knew he would make good on the threat if he was pushed. I thought Barry might be able to help her, because of his work with the police department, but he didn’t have the technology. He took her to friends of his who could help,” Len said. It was more in line with the truth and Barry relaxed a little. Behind Barry, Cisco and Caitlin fidgeted on the uncomfortable benches.

“But Lewis found out I was working with Barry and drafted him into the heist at gunpoint. If he didn't help, Lewis would kill him, and if I did not help, he would kill my sister. We were in the vault... when he found out Barry’s friends helped my sister. That’s when he tried to kill Barry. He, uh, shot at him. At the vault.”

Len went quiet a moment, watching his hands again. Barry didn’t call out the lie. The courtroom waited but nothing else was in the offering so Laurel chanced speaking up. “We have video evidence that corroborates the shooting, your honor. Lewis Snart held two men hostage in that vault, and he lied to the investigators to continue his hold on them.”

The judge nodded acknowledgement but his attention stayed on Len. “Why are you coming forward with this now? Why didn't you say anything about this when asked after the robbery?”

Len shrugged the question off, not exactly dismissive but not challenged by it at all. “Lewis wouldn't allow it. Me or my sister would have been hurt if I said anything he didn’t like. He blamed Barry for getting caught, wanted to see him suffer. So he fingered Barry and the detectives believed him. And now he's dead, in the riot he started, so I think the lies he started can die with him.”

There was a rustle of noise from everyone in the room. Even Barry was surprised. Len definitely had the judge’s attention. “Lewis Snart started the riot?”

The convict nodded from the witness stand. “Yes. He was trying to kill Barry.”

“How do you know this?”

“Half the cellblock knew,” said Len, just barely not rude in his annoyance at the question. Like his word wasn’t good enough. “Lewis had people after Barry every day he was there. It was known he was a cop, might as well have taken out a billboard with that newsflash. He made sure nobody liked him.”

It stood out to Barry that Len seemed to avoid looking at him. The judge glanced over at Barry then, took another long look at the bloody shirt with the torn collar hem not actually hidden by the prison issued hoodie.

“If that was his intent, the riot didn’t seem to work,” Laurel offered up.

“Though there was a drastic effort made, from the looks of the both of you,” the judge replied.

“Barry helped the guards. One of them was shot... Most of the blood isn't his,” Len spoke up again, in the apparent spirit of being helpful. There was a frustrated grumble from the prosecution’s table. The DA conversed briefly with his assistant. The file folder that the pair had been consulting throughout the meeting was tossed rather dismissively to the table in front of them. Laurel noticed; a the small, dangerous grin formed, one usually more at home on Black Canary’s face. She looked from the prosecution's table to the judge.

“Your honor, given that the witness’ statements line up with what my client told the detectives in his original statement...”

With a nod, the judge interrupted her. “I am fully concerned for your client's safety...”

The prosecuting attorney stood up again, obviously annoyed. “Your honor, the State moves to drop charges against Barry Allen.”

And that was it. It was done, as simple as that. Barry looked to Len and saw the man looking back at him. Maybe it was the week’s crazy catching up to him, but Len seemed relieved. Then the bailiff was between them to escort Len to the back again and Barry was all but tackled in his chair by Felicity Smoak dragging him back against the bar so she could hug his neck.

\-----


	19. Chapter 19

Unlike the exonerated and erstwhile hero of Central City, Len did not get to go to any semblance of  _ Home _ after the victory in the courtroom. The true hero of the whole incident found himself bitter and moody and staring at a cinderblock wall, watching the angle of the shadow cast by the bars slowly shift across the wall as the afternoon sun sunk lower across the high lockup windows. 

He felt a familiar sense of loss, he would maybe allow  _ abandonment _ to describe it except that implied some mild dependency had formed and Len wouldn’t call it that.  _ Reliability _ ,  _ predictability _ ,  _ appreciation _ , maybe, but not dependence. The expectation from the start was that Barry would be staying at Iron Heights only until his court date. Len wished he had put money on the bet, even though he would have had no chance of predicting back then that he would be so instrumental in Barry Allen’s case being dismissed. He had planned on Barry leaving. The sneaky hope that he would stay had been his usual self-destructive pattern, Len had to always find some way to get in his own way. Barry had just helped it along. 

And it hurt a little more than it should have. Hope was a shitty thing. Just an illusion. Len remembered very clearly why he preferred facts to hopes. So he tried to turn it all into facts. They were easier to handle.

_Fact_ : Barry had asked him for help.

_Fact_ : Len only agreed to help because he thought he could get something out of it.

_Fact_ : He got something out of it, a few times.

_Fact_ : Barry kissed him _first_.

Which meant, of course, that Barry got something out of it, too.

So, _fact_ : They had used  _ each other _ .

It was a mutual agreement between consenting adults, with both parties benefitting at the other’s assistance. It was a contract, of sorts. An exchange. Len worked that system plenty, he knew what bartering was. He could wrap his mind around that.

It wasn’t exactly fair that Barry got his record cleared and his career back on track, while Len got the personal satisfaction of never dealing with his father again. The terms had been Len walked when Barry walked. And hours after Barry’s release, Len was still behind bars. At least he had the whole cell to himself.

The bar’s shadow changed and disappeared, replaced by the bulkier shape of a human. Metahuman, whatever.

Once again a free man, and a police investigator, Barry stood at the gate and leaned on the bars. Len looked over at him from the upper bunk, not quite familiar or comfortable with the view he hadn’t seen before.

“Did you get lost?” Len asked. He didn’t move, just stayed flat on his back, staring at the gate. He had the luxury of being lazy and didn’t want to interrupt it. Barry shook his head.

“Nope.”

Len let him stand there, steeping in his awkwardness before he grudgingly dropped down to the ground again. He moved over to the bars and stood a few inches away from them, just out of easy reach. Barry tilted his head, confused but no less curious at the distance. Len met his eyes but he was very physically removed from Barry’s world now. 

“I guess that’s it then, huh?” Barry managed to ask. For some reason it didn’t seem right to Len. This wasn’t how he wanted it to go, if he was honest with himself. He didn’t want their last kiss, last closeness, last genuine connection to have been that rushed grouping in the middle of surviving a riot. It stung a little. But it was just a contract, so it wasn’t real anyway, right? Defensive against the narrative he was still trying to convince himself of, Len offered up that sarcastic smile of his.

“Don't get attached, remember?” he said, quiet. It didn’t have the bite it could have considering the front Len was putting up. But they couldn’t exactly argue it. That was the arrangement they had made on the inside. Len could be a stickler for commitment details when it came to taking a job. Other people who had partnered up with Captain Cold had ended up dead, so Barry realized he should be glad he had negotiated the deal he had. Eventually Barry nodded.

“I think I made a promise I still have to sort out,” he finally said. There was a flash of genuine surprise on Len’s face at that as he processed what that meant. Maybe Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes would hold up his end of the deal after all. Maybe Len was getting his hopes up again. His shoulder twitched but he stayed rooted to the spot just out of Barry’s easy touch. Then he smiled and at least his voice relaxed again.

“In that case,” he invited. “Get as attached as you want.”

But, after everything else, with their places reestablished on opposite sides of the bars, even though he really wanted to, Len didn’t believe him. Hope was the game of fools, and Len didn’t have the time to play.

 

****   


  
Of course, the downside to the visit from Barry was the hope. And the time. There was renewed hope that Barry planned to keep his promise. That maybe he really was attached, and maybe it was okay that Len hadn’t quite let go of hope yet.    
  
Like a fresh wound, that hope was injured with every hour that passed and every day that disappeared.    
  
Practically, Len expected nothing less. Barry may have shown him a rebel’s heart, but he was still one of The Good Guys. He would do what he could to keep a promise within the scope of the law. There would be no exciting jailbreak from Central City PD lockup, no adventure or risk of innocent life. That was Barry’s MO. Len told himself to expect nothing less.   
  
The best he could expect was the assistance of Barry’s friend Laurel Lance. Maybe that was how Barry planned to keep his word; the little rascal rented out his friends. There were some points for creativity there.   
  
For a lawyer, Miss Lance could spin a good tale herself. And attorney client privilege said she couldn’t say what she knew about Len’s record to anyone, so they had a lot of room for storytelling since the court couldn’t find proof he had one. Her job was to create the doubt he hadn’t done the crime on the current docket. And since Len had never touched the  _ gems _ , the only sticky problem spot was the breaking and entering. In his opinion, the fact that he shot his father was irrelevant for two reasons: first, his freeze gun was not classified as weapon under any laws on the books, and second, because the man died in the riot and wasn’t there to raise hell about it. It made sense to Len. And nobody had seen how Lewis had been shot during the riot, so Len wasn’t going to volunteer that damning information. 

This of course meant meetings with the lawyer while he was easily tracked down, a rather captive audience to her legal maneuverings. It was tiring, a detail that chipped away at his remaining faith in getting out the legal way. But he tried. He realized he tried for a stupid reason, though.

It was frustrating for Len to realize that he was playing the hopeful, law abiding convict role because it was what Barry seemed to want him to do. Like maybe if Barry believed hard enough that Laurel would be successful, and Len played along, it would work. 

He was in the middle of a meeting with Laurel when it hit him and Len started tuning her out almost immediately after. Pure stubborn refusal. She seemed to catch on.

“Mr. Snart?” The lawyer said. She waved a hand to catch his attention back. “Are we done here?”

Len nodded. “Yeah. We are.”

“I see. Did you pay any attention to what I just spent the last fifteen minutes outlining for you? It’s your case, I want to make sure you understand what I’m doing to try to help. There are obstacles...”

Len shook his head. “I understand the obstacles, Miss Lance. And that’s why, to save us both the time, we’re not going to go through them. Plead guilty. We walk away.”

Laurel stared at him in open-mouthed silence for a minute. “Actually, quite the opposite, Mr. Snart. You do  _ not _ walk away. You walk to a  _ cell _ and you stay there for, at the bare minimum five years, given the court’s current bias against you.”

Len shrugged it off. “As I am aware. And I don’t care. This is what I want done.”

It took another round of silence for the lawyer to wrap her mind around it. He could see on her face that the only thing going through her mind was what she would tell Barry, how she could explain the failed case to her friend.

“I want to call my sister. She should know Lewis is dead,” said Len. He held a hand out for Laurel’s cellphone. The lawyer shook her head.

“ _ That _ I can’t do-”

“No, I think you can,” said Len. “What  _ I _ can’t do is call to check up on her from here. And it will be months before I can turn my back on the yard to make a call from there. Because I threw in with a  _ cop _ . I kept my fellow  _ convicts _ from killing six of them. And when it gets around that I threw myself under the proverbial bus for Barry? I will not have many friends in the yard. So I need to be sure she knows.”

Watching him, Laurel considered the question. He tilted his head and weathered the scrutiny. Ultimately he must have passed because the lawyer started putting away her papers. The briefcase was zipped closed and set on the floor. Then, Laurel reached across the table to hand him a phone. 

“Fine,” she said. “One call. But I don’t leave the room until I get that back.”

 

***** 

 

It was nearly a week before C-Block was reassembled enough to recall all of the prisoners that had been relocated from Iron Heights. In that time, Len only saw Barry once.

It was an accident, and there weren’t any bars between them at the time because Len was on his way back from his hearing. It hadn’t been as complicated as Barry’s, and Laurel hadn’t told Barry about it ahead of time. Neither Laurel or Len had told Barry - until that accidental moment - how Len’s case would go. That was how Len wanted it, and Laurel was stuck with it, because the client got to be the boss. The ADA of Star City was a definite upgrade from a public defender and Len hadn’t been stupid enough to pass up her help to run the case how he wanted it. But he had been perfectly fine keeping the conspiracy from Barry.

They had made their agreements going in and the man was stubborn about honoring them. If Laurel was the only way out for Len, then Barry had kept up his end by passing the baton to the lawyer. There was no more deal to work around. When Barry made the mistake of setting a hand to Len’s arm outside of the bars, his former prison protector had pulled away, rough and annoyed. They were no longer behind bars. Len was no longer Barry’s to touch; the terms of their contract had been met. If Barry didn’t have boundaries, he could still be reminded of Len’s. 

And then, of course, he could ignore the hell out of them whenever he wanted, because Barry Allen was the Flash, and Len was still human enough to admit that he couldn’t keep up.

 

****

 

On the very day Leonard Snart was expected back in prison to serve his cheerful time for attempted armed robbery, he instead stared at trees, breathing fresh air, with no walls around for miles. And far away from the Iron Heights prison transport sedan with the unnoticed missing prisoner, Barry Allen stood in the forest with an escaped convict. It was as close to nowhere as they could get, and not knowing exactly what his resource pool was, Len wasn’t sure how he would get back to the city. He wasn’t going to admit that out loud to Barry, though. 

If by some chance Len was completely unable to deal with fresh air and quiet, they could probably still change plans. A part of Len wanted to be in a much smaller space rather than out in the open. He could tell Barry watched him as he sat down on a large rock to use it as a table, sort out the backpack Barry had given him. There was a fresh change of clothes, a few snacks, and a fake ID. And despite Barry’s better sense, the backpack even had some cash hidden in it. That was amusing. Len had never been paid so little for a job at such risk.

Once he had taken inventory, Len put everything away again. Barry, of course, supervised from behind a red cowl, making himself as unreadable as possible. It was safer for the Flash to conduct a jailbreak than for Barry to be seen anywhere near it. However, it didn’t escape Len’s notice that his coldgun was not in the collection of helpful items the Flash presented to get him going back into the world. 

“Don't make me regret this,” Barry said. It wasn’t much of a warning, just an actual request. He sounded worried, maybe a little cranky. Len hefted the backpack to his shoulder and stood up. He looked Barry in the eye.

“We all have things we're good at,” Len reminded him, sounding nothing like the Leonard Snart most people got to hear. “You and I just happen to be at... opposite ends of the moral spectrum.”

Barry shook his head. “There's good in you. I know it.”

Len seemed amused, but not happy. He was resigned to the loss now, a week in. The quiet dragged on before he managed to talk himself into saying whatever was burning at his mind. He stood close to Barry, held his attention to be sure Barry understood him the first time.

“The riot was still my idea, Barry, I just let Lewis think it was his scheme. I let him do it,” he said, no more volume to his tone than there had been since Barry had handed him the backpack. He shrugged his shoulder to escape the weight of the secret he was passing on. “It was the only chance I'd have to get rid of Lewis. And it would only work with you in the middle of it.”

It wasn’t actually a surprise to Barry. Len had put on a show around everyone in the prison. He just shrugged it off. It wasn’t important whose idea it was. “And you helped me anyway. You didn’t set me up to be killed when you could have.”

There was a small quirk of a sad smile to Len’s face then. “That's my problem.”

“Sounds like you got attached,” Barry taunted lightly. Len just stared at him for a long minute, the wheels turning, like he had to weigh it out. Like maybe Barry was right. Len didn’t dismiss it so easily at all.

“Don't let that one get around,” he finally said. “It’ll ruin both of us.”

Barry grinned at him. “Well, sorry about the name then. You’ll probably want to get a new ID. I was faking it when I talked to the guy, never bought a fake ID before, only knew who to talk to because of you anyway. So...”

Eyes narrowed, Len pulled out the new wallet he had been given to check the card. He rolled his eyes and shoved the ID back in his pocket to be forgotten. A name was a cover, an act, but that didn’t mean Len had to believe it meant anything. That wasn’t how either of their lives worked. Barry was entertained, even if he wasn’t. He lifted a hand, waved it back and forth a little.

“Too obvious, huh?” Barry asked. “Was going for more  _ allies _ , less _ prison bitch. _ ..”

There was actually a spark of amusement when Len looked back at Barry for that. “I think you missed.”

“I think you can live up to it, if you try,” Barry told him. Len held his gaze again.

“I think you're stalling again,” he said. The thing was, neither of them seemed in any kind of a hurry about it. Barry tilted his chin in a grudging nod.

“Maybe. Probably.”

The hesitation dragged on, something more final threatening when they parted company this time. For a split second, Barry wished he hadn’t taken the Flash along on this mission. He wished he hadn’t dragged Len out into the middle of nowhere in the woods. He wished he had found someplace he could do more than stare at the man he knew better than to trust, that they had gotten to make good on their partnership instead of just help each other kill time. He caught himself hoping Len had maybe at least once wished the same nonsensical things. Wishing, hoping, but not daring to ask, because if he had, he would have maybe learned that his ideas weren’t far from Len’s.

It was Len who moved first and settled Barry’s mind just a little. The man caught the edge of the mask Barry wore and pushed it back over his head, let his hand rest at the back of his neck. Then he kissed him, the deep tangle for equal control that neither of them could ever figure out who won. He caught at Len’s hip to hold him close for just a moment and the man didn’t pull back or cut him off. It took the breath away and lit up all the right places. That was what Barry wanted. Something that seemed real and actually just theirs. Barry got to feel Len smile at him again before they broke apart.

Then Len put a hand to his shoulder and shoved, not much force but enough to make them both move back. The familiar smug grin was on his face as he turned to go his own way again.

“Go away, Barry.”

Barry smiled as he saw the man watching him to be sure he left. It was an easy contest to win, so Barry reset the cowl over his eyes and started to run. He was a flash of light and a wave of wind that pushed at Len. And they were gone.

 

\--*The End*--


End file.
